Suzanne McBride’s paper sculpture rests on an easel at the Carving Arts Center in Plano, Texas. Intricately designed with upward-reaching swirls, it is titled Freedom’s Dream. The piece could be a symbol for her new life.
McBride, who has a master’s degree in computer science, abandoned her lucrative career as a software engineer last year to become a full-time artist.
“This has given me the freedom to do whatever I want . . .,” she said. “It makes me feel good to get up in the morning again.”
McBride, 35, has joined a burgeoning movement known as “downshifting,” “cashing out” or “voluntary simplicity.” Whatever the label, the trend involves taking a reduction in hours, pay and/or perks to improve quality of life. Some downshifters want additional time for family, while others focus on hobbies and community work, or, like McBride, look for more meaning in work.
High stress, long hours and huge layoffs have led some hard-charging professionals to question the corporate climb, said Gerald Celente, who heads the New York-based Trends Research Institute, a market research firm. It started with the economic downturn of the late 1980s and early ’90s and is gaining momentum as the Baby Boomer population enters its 40s and 50s, Celente said.
“They’re previewing their mortality in the illness and death of their parents. They’re saying, ‘I’m 50 years old, I have another 20 good years . . . and I’m going to start doing what I want to do,’ ” he said.
There have always been those who have looked with skepticism on the trade-offs involved in upward mobility. Working mothers, for instance, have long sought part-time or flexible jobs to spend more time with their children. But experts such as Celente, who called downshifting a leading trend of the ’90s, believe the ranks will grow as younger generations join Boomers in yearning for something deeper.
A large national study by the Merck Family Fund in 1995 found 62 percent of surveyed adults agreeing with the statement, “I would like to simplify my life.” A British poll determined that 6 percent of the population took a voluntary cut in income during 1996, and 6 percent more intended to do so in 1997. Last year, 49 percent of adults surveyed by U.S. News & World Report said society puts too much emphasis on work.
“We are working at a very fast clip. And in that climate, I think, the hunger for some space and the hunger for some time is stronger,” said Betsy Taylor, who headed the Merck Family Fund during its downshifting research and recently took over leadership of the Center for a New American Dream, which is concentrating on the downshifting issue.
Taylor herself is a case in point. When she accepted the job with Merck Fund, Taylor negotiated a four-day workweek in exchange for the $10,000-plus premium she’d been offered over her previous salary. She’s retained that schedule in her current job.
“For me, that was kind of a big choice, because I’m not married to a corporate lawyer. I’m married to a community college teacher,” Taylor said. “It meant we didn’t expand the kitchen, and we didn’t get a new car. I got to take jazz piano, go to my kids’ school and have some more space in my life.”
Taylor acknowledged that voluntarily taking a pay cut would be tough to impossible for many workers. “I think there are millions of Americans searching for a way to feel less stressed out, and some have easier choices than others. People making minimum wage just don’t have those choices.”
Dan Foshee jokes that his decision to close a successful dental practice at age 50 was “more ignorance than bliss,” at least where money was concerned. Foshee, who now spends his time carving birds that sell for hundreds of dollars, had ample savings. He also has a supportive spouse with a good job.
Foshee said he underestimated the time it would take his new career to soar. For several years, he supplemented his art income with part-time dentistry.
Regrets? Just one, he said. “I wish I’d found this need in me when I was much younger.”
Carl Bindhammer, a fellow sculptor and artist at the Carving Arts Center, had a son ready to enter college when he left a managerial position with a six-figure salary. For that reason, Bindhammer planned his exit carefully, structuring his art business to allow time for “bread-and-butter” jobs with business clients. His lowest income was $23,000 the first year, and it’s been “an upward march” in the seven years since, he said.
Dawn Abel, a 46-year-old technical writer, wants to work fewer hours so that she’ll have more time for the rest of her life–a heavy menu that includes singing in a women’s barbershop group, making jewelry and working on political campaigns.
By continually trading up in houses over 16 years, she’s recently purchased a large San Francisco-area home with two apartments, which will supplement her income and let her reduce her hours at work.
For Fay Rosenfeld, the decision to leave corporate law for a teaching position at New York University was at least partly about time. Though she expects teaching to be challenging and time-consuming, the pace will be different.
“It’s a demanding job, but it won’t be the corporate rat race. I won’t be staying up all night writing a brief or coming in on the weekend to prepare for trial,” said Rosenfeld, who has two children. “I’m taking a huge pay cut, huge.”
Dr. Benjamin Hunnicutt, professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa, believes that downshifting may be a transitory phase rather than a major change in values. At the turn of the century, big thinkers such as England’s John Stuart Mill predicted that industrial progress would lead to a four-hour workday, freeing people for productive leisure. Instead, after shortening for 100 years, the workweek has recently lengthened.
“Work is no longer a means to an end but has become an end in itself, the center of our culture,” Hunnicutt said. “It has become something like a modern religion, answering our questions about identity, purpose . . . how we make sense of our time here on Earth.”
