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the benefits of part-time work

兼职工作的好处

happiness on just a day a week

每周只需工作一天便能带来快乐

people’s relationship with work is comp

lex. for all the complaining about the?tediumand bureaucracy, the power-crazed bosses and?recalcitrant?colleagues, individuals need the security of a job.?

人与工作的关系很复杂。虽然人们总是抱怨工作单调乏味、充满官僚主义作风、老板迷恋权力、同事顽固不化,但每个人都需要一份工作所带来的安全感。

a century of research has shown that unemployment is bad for mental health, leading to depression, anxiety and reduced self-esteem. on average, it has an even greater effect than divorce.

一个世纪以来的研究表明,失业有害心理健康,会导致抑郁、焦虑以及自尊心的丧失。平均而言,失业对人们的影响更甚于离婚。

but how much work do you need to do? a recent paper* by the centre for business research at cambridge university took the opportunity of the pandemic to examine the impact of reduced working hours on well-being.?

但是你究竟需要多少工作量呢?近日,剑桥大学商业研究中心发表的一篇论文,该机构借新冠肺炎疫情之机就工作时间的减少对幸福感的影响展开了研究。

many british employees were placed in a?furlough?scheme, under which their hours were reduced and their wages were subsidised by the government. “we found that people working reduced working hours or being furloughed do not have poorer mental health,” the authors conclude.?

疫情爆发之际,许多英国人被强制安排了休假,他们的工作时长缩短了,而工资则由政府补贴。该论文的作者总结称:“我们发现,那些工作时长缩短或被强制安排休假的人的心理健康状况并没有变差。”

this suggests that social welfare would be improved if governments adopted furlough schemes in future recessions, even when they are not?triggered?by a virus.

这表明,如果政府在未来的经济衰退中采取此类强制休假措施,那么社会福利将会得到提升,即使衰退并非由病毒所致。

what was particularly surprising is how little work was needed to keep people happy. the threshold for good mental health was just one day a week—after that, it seemed to make little difference to individuals’ well-being if they worked eight hours or 48 hours a week.?

尤其令人惊讶的是,只需很少量的工作就能让人感到快乐。保持良好的心理健康的工作量临界值是每周工作一天,此后,不管是每周再工作8小时还是48小时,其对个人幸福感的影响似乎都微乎其微。

the boost from working clearly comes from the feeling of purpose, from the social status it creates and from the?camaraderie?of colleagues engaged in the same tasks.

工作的推动力显然来自于使命感、它所带来的社会地位以及与并肩奋斗的同事之间的情谊。

clearly, economies cannot prosper if everyone works one day a week. but the need to limit excessive working hours was realised back in victorian times. for much of the 20th century the length of the average working week fell while output continued to climb.

如果每个人每周只工作一天,经济显然不可能繁荣。但早在维多利亚时代,人们就已经认识到限制过长工作时间的必要性。在20世纪的大部分时间里,人们平均每周的工作时长都在缩短,但产出却在持续增多。

there will be occasions when people have to work late or rise early to finish a project (bartleby writes this on a day when the needs of the economist required him to get up at 5am).?

有时,人们会为了完成一个项目而不得不起早贪黑(为了能及时交稿,巴托比在撰写这篇文章时就是早上5点起床的)。

day after day, however, a long-hours lifestyle is bad for workers’ health. some organisations may see the appetite for slogging it out as a sign of an employee’s willingness to put their job ahead of their families and friends. if so, they don’t need to have better employees. they need better managers.

然而,日复一日的长时间工作方式对员工的健康造成了损害。一些雇主可能会认为,员工努力工作的表现是把工作的重要性排在了家人和朋友之前。如果真是这样,这些公司需要的不是更好的员工,而是更好的管理者。

(黑体标注词为重难点词汇)?

本文翻译:vinnie


重难点词汇:

tedium?[?ti?di?m] n. 沉闷;单调乏味

recalcitrant?[r??k?ls?tr?nt] adj. 反抗的;反对的;顽强的

furlough?[?f??rlo?] n. 休假;暂时解雇

trigger?[?tr?ɡ?r] v. 触发;引起;开动

camaraderie?[?kɑ?m??rɑ?d?ri] n. 友情;同志之爱


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