Everyday life after downshifting: Consumption, thrift, and inequality

This qualitative study finds that downshifting experiences are shaped by gender, caring responsibilities, inequality, and financial security. Reducing working hours does not directly lead to reduced consumption. Instead, participants engage in thrifty rather than sustainable consumption. The differing experiences of urban and regional downshifters are worthy of further exploration.

(Hamilton & Mail, 2003; Schor, 1998). Downshifting entered the lexicon at a time when ethical, fair trade, and especially sustainable consumption were emerging or further consolidating as ways to contest consumer norms. As such, downshifting remains part of the language of anti-consumerist politics and has a broader resonance with western publics as the moniker for opting out of a stressful working life.

The ethos of downshifting aligns with other prominent lifestyle alternatives, especially slow living (for discussion of this, see Humphery, 2010; Parkins & Craig, 2006). Slow culture and lifestyle, like downshifting, have been interpreted as reactions to the acceleration of consumer capitalism and the “velocity, intensity and perceived meaninglessness of life” (Osbaldiston, 2013, p. 4). Indeed, slow culture is sometimes defined expansively as a broad cultural resistance to speed (Osbaldiston, 2013) or, more specifically, as a reaction to globalisation and the assertion of a renewed connection to localism (Regusa, 2013). Yet the desire for a slower or more meaningful life does not always mesh with a particular political or ecological stance, as Angela Regusa (2013) finds in her study of Australian “tree changers” who moved from urban centres to country towns. Although Regusa’s study participants expected that their new lives would be slower and more relaxed, many had found that a tree change did not decrease their working hours or levels of material consumption. Despite this finding, the “ability to determine one’s lifestyle pace” was achieved by most of these tree changers who were satisfied with the increased agency they had over their lives (Regusa, 2013, p. 131).

Regusa’s study underscores the contradictory dynamics and impacts of downshifting and similar phenomena such as slow living, as does our own and several others focused on exploring the complex motivations underlying downshifting and the differential impact downshifting lifestyles have on consumption and life satisfaction. Such

exploratory research is limited, and findings have been mixed.

In relation to environmental impact, some studies suggest that downshifting and voluntary simplicity result in positive environmental outcomes in terms of reduced household resource use (Alexander & Ussher, 2012; Chhetri et al., 2009b; Kennedy et al., 2013). However, others have been more circumspect. In one time use and qualitative study of downshifters in Germany, Buhl and Acosta (2016) found that a reduction in working hours had ambiguous environmental impacts such that, for example, consumption activities changed, and leisure activities increased. Indeed, while Buhl and Acosta's participants largely allocated their time to hobby pursuits, childcare and, to a lesser extent, housework, educational activities, and sleep, some leisure activities involved more intensive resource use—resulting in only slightly lower resource consumption within downshifter households. The way that time is allocated thus appears key to the environmental impact of downshifting. Overall, the existing association of lower working hours with reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is most likely due to the strong relationship between working hours, income, and consumption (Nässén & Larsson, 2015).

Downshifting studies are even more inconclusive when it comes to assessing levels of life satisfaction (Buhl & Acosta, 2016; Chhetri et al., 2009a; Hammond & Kennedy, 2019; Kennedy et al., 2013). Once again, the study by Buhl and Acosta (2016) documents contradictory forces underlying levels of self-fulfilment through voluntarily reduced paid work. Buhl and Acosta's participants, for example, reported increased social and community engagement and enhanced life satisfaction from downshifting, but these findings were tempered by the fact that many participants lamented decreased income and loss of occupational and social status. Another key point to emerge from their study was that participants reported increased caregiving and household production activities. Not surprisingly, these activities were highly demarcated, and Buhl and Acosta noted that post-downshifting priorities were strongly influenced by family status and gender, with women spending more time on household chores, errands, and childcare and men on leisure, repairs, and hobbies—findings that corroborate those of an earlier study in the United Kingdom (Druckmen et al., 2012).

These insights prompt consideration of another key issue that is somewhat obscured in existing downshifting studies; the impact of wealth, income, and housing tenure on pathways into—and the experience of—downshifting. Financial resources have a direct impact on consumption levels (Mansvelt, Breheny, & Stephens,

2017) and enable downshifting as a life choice. Some people purposefully use financial independence as an alternative to work (Perrone, Vickers, & Jackson, 2015), and higher levels of household wealth are strongly linked with home ownership; in turn, this allows owner occupiers to better manage periods of income volatility (Carter, 2011). In home owner nations such as Australia and the United States, home ownership has been shown to be an infrastructure of care, as secure and affordable housing enables both greater self-care and care of others (cf. Power, 2019; Tronto, 2013). One of the few studies of downshifting to directly explore these issues suggests, as we do here, that “downshifting is a highly variable experience shaped by resources that map onto socio-economic status” (Hammond & Kennedy, 2019, p. 164). Drawing on interviews with downshifters in the United States, Hammond and Kennedy demonstrate both that the decision to downshift is often less obviously voluntary for those with lower economic and social status and that downshifting can simply reproduce and highlight such inequality. Similar findings are evident in this Australian study, although we give greater emphasis here to housing tenure and the gendered nature of informal care and income security, in shaping the downshifting experience.

Apposite also to this study is a turn from the idea of downshifting to practices of frugality and thrift. Indeed, running parallel to the downshifting literature, there has been renewed academic and public interest in the concepts of thrift and frugality as potential modes of sustainable consumption (Evans, 2011; Hall, 2015; Holmes, 2019; Podkalicka & Potts, 2014; Podkalicka & Tang, 2014). David Evans (2011) has proposed a conceptual distinction between these two sets of everyday practices. He argues that frugality aligns with practices of sustainable consumption through both lowered expenditure and resistance to the excess of consumer society. By contrast, thrift involves restraining expenditure but not necessarily lower levels of consumption and thus does not challenge high consumption norms. According to Evans, thrift is driven by economic and social circumstances (such as reduced income and the need to care for immediate friends and family) rather than by an ethos of preserving the environment for distant others, as with frugal practices.

This distinction is certainly useful for illuminating the divergent environmental implications of different orientations toward consumption, but in the messiness of everyday life the categories of thrift and frugality may merge as much as contradict such that, according to Hall (2015, p. 145), “sustainable and thrifty consumption have a level of compatibility.” Similarly, Helen Holmes (2019) has examined thrift as an everyday phenomenon that

moves across consumption and production processes and simultaneously involves both more and less sustainable practices. Holmes has usefully suggested that thrift is a constellation of practices that draws on a continuum of motivations ranging from “financial necessity,” which drives activities such as reusing and repairing to “conscience,” which motivates activities such as recycling repurposing, waste reduction, and ethical consumption and to “enjoyment,” which involves practices such as upcycling, making, and mending.

In taking up several of the foregoing insights on downshifting and thrift practices, our Australian study contributes knowledge on the differentially lived experience of downshifting and its relationship to sustainable and/or thrifty consumption. By working with people from two distinct geographic locations who voluntarily reduced their working hours, we take up Hall’s (2015, p. 142) call to provide greater “geographical insight into the lived elements of economic and political change in everyday urban life,” while paying attention to the caution called for by Buhl and Acosta (2016) and by Hammond and Kennedy (2019) in response to tendencies to exaggerate the environmental and wellbeing impacts of downshifting. On that basis, we make particular use of Holmes’ (2019) typology of thrift in our data analysis, mapping the ways in which downshifting is embroiled in interrelated practices and motivations.

We used a qualitative methodology and collected data through in-depth narrative interviews and self-completed consumption diaries. Participants were interviewed in person in their houses and photographs were taken as a reference for the research team. The life narrative interviews with participants (Wiles, Rosenberg, & Kearns, 2005) included detailed questions about their transition to less work and others about how this transition has affected their everyday lives and consumption practices. The interviews took on average between 60 and 90 minutes. Participants were also asked over a one week period to complete self-recorded diaries documenting their practices and expenditure in three key consumption domains—food, transport, and leisure. These consumption diaries took the form of a table for each day of the week, with fields for recording descriptive notes and expenses relating to the three consumption domains, and for reflections on how current consumption practices and expenditure might differ from those present prior to

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downshifting. When completed, these templates were emailed back to the research team by the participants.

Interviews were audio recorded and fully transcribed. The data analysis involved carefully reading the transcriptions and consumption diaries in full and producing a summary of key narrative elements, events, and themes for each participant (Wiles et al., 2005). Thematic analysis was also undertaken individually by the team and cross-checked, whereas matrices were used to summarise the themes and patterns in the data (Miles et al., 1994).

For participants in this study, pathways into downshifting were varied, and the key drivers for reducing working hours related to labour market change—including workplace restructures and redundancies—or family change such as intensified caring responsibilities or relationship dissolution and/or formation. Where downshifting was unprompted by such events, work stress and personal health influenced the transition. Although almost all participants described their decision to downshift as a “life choice,” their actions were almost always initiated by external events beyond their control. This pattern formed a backdrop to the interviews that, although framed around a focus on consumption practices, unfolded as a broader conversation about care, income, and household.

Care emerged as a major reason for choosing to reduce paid working hours. Caring responsibilities were a key feature of downshifting for eight of 10 participants, with several undertaking socially less visible and less recognised forms of care for elderly parents, partners, and older teenagers (Loretto & Vickerstaff, 2015). For example, Katya (aged in her early 40s) had given up paid work for several years to look after her late mother. Undertaken with her brother, this care work was extremely demanding, and it was impossible for them to undertake paid work as well as informal care. As Katya said:

Well, obviously we had to work around the clock to suit both of us, like she had a lot of respiratory problems, so it involved us being around her 24/7, someone had to be there. Doctor's appointments, non-stop you know, obviously taking her to hospital, you'd take her in and then there'd be stints of two to three weeks. So, if it wasn't going home, we'd be going to hospital. But yeah, I just think at the time it was the right move.

After her mother's death, Katya decided to go back to work part time, but at the time of interview, she was pregnant with twins and planning to take a further break from the workforce to care for them.

In two cases, work and care intertwined to reduce hours. Sharon (aged in her mid-50s) took a redundancy package from her university job. She then moved into paid work with a local council but eventually reduced her hours significantly to manage family caring responsibilities for her ill partner, her son, and her late elderly father. These caring responsibilities took a heavy toll that contributed to her divorce and affected her health and ability to re-enter the paid labour market. Similarly, Lisa (aged in her early 40s) reduced her working hours in response to her partner, Paul's deteriorating health, and a family crisis involving the death of her stepson. She was able to support Paul through a heart operation and recovery, and at the time of interview, she and Paul were taking the opportunity to travel "while he can." Nevertheless, Lisa continues to provide care to grandchildren one day a week and regularly visits her 93-year-old father.

In contrast, two participants opted for downshifting in response to new relationships and relocation. Sandra (aged in her late 50s) reduced paid working hours initially to look after her teenage son, who was struggling with mental health issues, but she then went through a divorce and remarriage. This change meant moving in with an older partner and finding affordable housing in a satellite town near Melbourne:

We couldn't buy a house between us, without a mortgage without moving out of Melbourne. My son was horrified but we promised him we'd help with a car, which we have, and we take him back and forth [to Melbourne] as often as he wants. We've been here 18 months now and that's the way we could afford to buy something, because it's cheaper here ... Then I went part-time. I got a job about three months after we moved here. I volunteered at aged care; they took me on.

Despite the difficulties of providing informal care and forging a new household, Sandra, like many participants, insisted that downshifting had afforded new opportunities for forms of self-care. Looking back on her previous life, Sandra observed:

It was very regimented. I wanted to change the busy-ness of it. I didn't really have a home life really. It was really integrated, you

know, there was no real home life. I had to be always organised, you know, the school drop-off, school pick-up, lunches made the night before. I was sort of like a robot. I don't know what the word is, but I just didn't have the freedom of self really.

For Sandra, downshifting is perhaps a way to positively reframe the losses she had experienced during a tumultuous time in her life and affirm her new sense of self. Similarly, for Christi (aged in her late 40s), downshifting was essentially driven by the need to care for herself:

I think it's basically probably health wise so, yeah, I wanted to take a break because I was getting too stressed at work and the amount of hours that I was working was just far too excessive.

Surprisingly, none of the participants framed their decision to downshift in ideological terms, as an alternative lifestyle or a choice to live more sustainably or ethically. Instead, a commitment to relationships and care emerged as stronger motivations. Consistently, a strong sense of experiencing and overcoming difficulty and stress was conveyed in interviews in which participants reflected on the task of juggling paid work and caring responsibilities and on dealing with family crises. Indeed, among the middle-aged women in our study, prioritising carer roles by reducing work and income became a rational method to reconcile intense but common everyday pressures. Many thus "downshifted," at least in part to do other forms of work, including the so-called informal work of caring for others and themselves. Reportedly, and like many Australian women, they had changed their mode of work rather than reduced work overall in order to sustain and support their families (Bauer & Sousa-Poza, 2015). Yet economic resources and financial security were also important mediators of everyday life after downshifting as we discuss below.

Importantly, our study found that a platform for successful and satisfying downshifting was provided by financial security, particularly in the form of home ownership, investment income, or an employed partner (cf. Power, 2019). Six participants readily reported enjoying their altered lives but offered dual

understandings of the “freedoms” downshifting offered. People spoke both of freedom from work and of freedom to spend more time as they chose or with family and friends. For some, on the other hand, downshifting was a struggle related to a sense of enforced frugality and low social status.

Despite her considerable care duties, Lisa found that she had become “much less stressed” and was “much happier” with reduced and flexible paid work. Financial security in the form of a modest house with a small mortgage, access to her husband Paul’s semi-retirement income, and mutual savings had enabled them as a couple to spend time socialising and travelling. They felt privileged that they were “quite comfortable” and able to move in and out of work. As Lisa commented:

a lot of people aren’t in that situation, so we’re very lucky and we know that. Not everybody would be able to just quit work and say [they are] going to have a few months off and then work for myself and then go away for nine weeks and then do this. Yeah, we’re very, very fortunate.

For Sandra, having bought an affordable house out-right with her new partner, life was both manageable and enjoyable on reduced income and with fewer work hours: “I think I could breathe. I could smell the roses.” Such sentiments were echoed by Jenny (aged in her early 50s) in relation to housing security. For Jenny and her partner, paying off their mortgage had provided the flexibility for her to close her stressful retail business and downshift. She was clearly revelling in the transition to new daily rhythms:

I’m not as stressed, nowhere near as stressed. I am more relaxed than ever, and I’ve done things that I wanted to do. So, I’ve sanded and painted furniture, I’ve just set myself little tasks each week I suppose. So, I just get up and I think, ‘oh yeah, I’ll go and do that today’.

For other participants, the transition to living on less income entailed in downshifting was proving more of a challenge but ultimately was still satisfying. Maria (aged in her mid-40s) was in a position made redundant during the global financial crisis and had relocated to Bendigo with her new partner, who was working full time. Maria herself had not been able to secure a permanent, full-time, professional position. She began studying part time and working intermittently and eventually saw “the positives” of her enforced downshifting:

I then started thinking about retirement and I’m still probably too young for that, but I was at home and I really loved it because I could go to the shops when I wanted, I could do my dishes, I could travel and never have to ask for leave. There were all these bonuses of not working. But having time just felt so good that when I did go back to work, working full time was quite hard. Whereas before I’d never known any different. I just went straight from school to uni, to working, back to study, back to work. And then one day I had time between when I didn’t have a job at all, and I was stressed at first and then I thought ‘this is actually really good. I can have a life’.

Clearly, with the financial support from her partner, Maria’s slow conversion to downshifting both relieved her stress and provided and provided a range of consumption choices in terms of travel and leisure activities.

In contrast, financial insecurity had a profound impact on everyday life for those participants for whom downshifting was far more a result of life circumstance than life choice. Given years of intense caring obligations and health difficulties, and although she had originally voluntarily downshifted, Sharon now felt locked out of the job market and excluded from social and cultural activities through lack of income. As she commented:

I used to have an art gallery membership and go down to Melbourne for that and other cultural things. I really love music and theatre. I don’t do any of that anymore, just because financially I can’t. It is a disappointment, yeah.

In Sharon’s case, the dual freedoms noted above remain part of how she experiences downshifting, but without financial security her leisure consumption choices are much more limited than Maria’s. Mick also said that his leisure options had been constrained by living on a low income, and he lamented not being able to accompany his partner on a cruise for lack of funds. Indeed, downshifting for financially insecure participants such as Mick and Sharon could be read as merely a euphemism for diminished economic capital and social engagement.

Financial security was clearly identified as crucial for viable downshifting, especially in terms of a regular income stream and reduced housing costs linked to home ownership. In other words, having a life that was happier, less stressful, and more meaningful after

downshifting was not guaranteed, and many participants were keenly aware of this fact. For the least satisfied of our downshifters, reduced income had led to money worries, pressure on relationships, a sense of social isolation, and exclusion from consumer markets. Thus, downshifting could certainly fulfil its promise of greater life satisfaction but only under the conditions of solid financial security—through home ownership and savings or through a secure relationship with a financially supportive partner.

In comparison with their lives prior to downshifting, all the participants in this study lived on reduced incomes. In general terms, this change had an impact on personal and household consumption, but more specifically there was wide variation in participants' consumption patterns. This variation was linked to financial resources rather than ethical sensibilities about sustainability or simplicity. Indeed, although a small number of people mentioned activities such as investing in solar energy, consumption was not consistently reduced or geared toward more sustainable patterns by any of our participants. Nevertheless, for most participants, downshifting had resulted in greater resourcefulness, selective frugality, or financial cautiousness, as well as in heightened appreciation of home production and leisure activities that did not involve high levels of consumption. This combined effect was evident in both interviews and consumption diaries. Table 2 provides a summary of the expenditure and consumption diaries in the three domains of food, transport, and leisure.

Drawing on a typology of thrift practices developed by Holmes (2019), we found numerous examples of thrift driven by financial necessity. For those participants on limited income, careful budgeting and a little frugality was crucial across both household and leisure consumption terrains. As Sandra explained:

We just have to be careful when we spend our money and where we do it. My wages are spent before I get it because even though we haven't got a mortgage, we still have a small loan for his [her partner's] truck and I've never had a loan for a car before, do you know what I mean? So those sorts of things change, and going out; we do go out, we go to bingo once a week because he likes bingo and we go dancing once a week because I like dancing lessons—rock and roll—and

that's really our social life. So, we still do things, but we just have to watch it.

This sense of caution was marked in relation to food consumption. We found that for most participants downshifting had a substantial impact on their weekly food consumption and had, in many instances, resulted in new food purchasing patterns and changes to the types of food prepared and consumed. For many, there was an increased focus on healthier, home-cooked meals and a reduction in instances of takeaway purchases and eating out. As Lisa commented:

I shop at Aldi. There's nothing wrong with that. Aldi's great. I love to cook and I'm doing more of that because I'm able to, I've got the time to do it ... So, I start from scratch, we don't have takeaway, we don't have a lot of processed at all ... That's significantly changed, and we never have takeaway, we just don't.

In the domain of travel as well, thrift practices were geared around financial constraint rather than sustainability. There were changes in travel and holiday patterns but not an overall reduction for most of the participants. Attention had instead shifted to identifying holiday bargains and, given greater available time, to off-season travel, at least half of our participants spoke of this as one of the “benefits” of downshifting. Once again, Lisa summed up such matters by observing how she and her partner had reduced expenditure in various domains but prioritised travel:

Since we've wound back with work our travelling has increased, but we're doing it hopefully more on a budget way of doing it. So, we wait for deals to come up and we use the low cost airlines and that sort of thing. We go more often if we do that ...

To reiterate, none of the participants in this study specifically mentioned thrift practices driven by conscience factors such as a commitment to the environment through ethical or sustainable consumption (Holmes, 2019). This is not to say that sustainable practices or reduced consumption were went unmentioned in participant diaries or interviews but, rather, that consumption was not framed as part of a mindset shift or alternative lifestyle ethos (Hall, 2015). However, we did find several examples of thrift practices oriented to sustainability in relation to leisure. Leisure pursuits were routinely connected by participants to a sense of enjoyment and

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Note. Interview 3 not included due to missing data.

pleasure that was compatible with sustainability, though not framed in these terms (Hall, 2015; Holmes, 2019). This finding was clear among participants who enjoyed growing food in their gardens and cooking. Jenny spoke of having much less money to spend on food but noted also that one of the pleasures of her new life is the growing and eating of vegetables:

We're actually growing a lot of vegetables. I don't know if you can see out here, but I'm growing spinach and I've got strawberries, and there's tomatoes coming. And my husband has a huge big block at his mum and dad's house ... and he's growing a mass[ive] amount of things. So, he'll go, 'Oh, we've got zucchini' and so then I'll just Google what are we going to have with zucchini? So, I can make up different recipes. During winter we had asparagus so I made ... you know, you can make asparagus soup, you can do lots of things. So, I'm Googling more to use what we're growing. So, we're growing more and more.

Similarly, many participants noted that they had increased time both for cooking and for pursuing other

enjoyable thrifty practices such as renovating furniture, upcycling, and making things such as clothing (Holmes, 2019).

In summary, participants' consumption patterns across Holmes' three domains of food, travel, and leisure had changed but not uniformly decreased after downshifting. Indeed, people adapted to living with lower incomes while often retaining their prior consumption preferences and habits. Using Evans' (2011) binary distinction between thrift and frugality, noted above, our participants focused almost exclusively on thrift by saving money, shopping wisely, and caring for immediate family and friends, rather than by focusing on deliberate frugality and reducing consumption in light of environmental or other politically motivated concerns. Thrifty consumption was a common response to life on a reduced income following downshifting but consumption patterns, like all aspects of everyday life after downshifting, appeared to be strongly related to financial resources and security for participants in our study. Thrift was thus focused on finding a bargain or continuing to consume at relatively high levels on less money (Evans, 2011; Holmes, 2019).

Most notably, when it comes to domestic and overseas holidays, many participants increased rather than decreased their travels. Overall, then, interviews revealed the indefinite and contradictory impact of reduced working hours on consumption. Although downshifting was linked to changes in consumption (and home-production) practices, just as readily it also involved an increase—rather than decrease—of consumption in specific domains, particularly for those with financial security.