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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Work-Life Balance

The Essay: Work-Life Balance: Episode 2

Episode 2

Work-Life Balance

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Work-Life Balance, Episode 2

Hugh Cunningham explores the battle for leisure during the Industrial Revolution.

Prof Hugh Cunningham explores the battle - long fought, but ultimately won - for leisure during the Industrial Revolution.

We talk now of a 'work/life balance', as though 'work' is something quite separate from 'life' and the meaning of both is self-evident. How have we arrived at such a way of thinking? It's hard to find answers because, while there is endless newspaper coverage of the issue, no history of the work/life balance exists. Especially for The Essay, Professor Hugh Cunningham explores the place that work has played in British lives from proto-industrialism in the C18th to post-industrialism in the C21st through five vivid chronological snapshots. Each tells the story of a particular period while shedding new light on a contemporary juggling act that causes great stress to many if not most people in our society

Throughout the series Hugh Cunningham returns to two themes: the impact of contemporary consumerism on our working lives and the difference between the work/leisure balance of the past - when the work-force was mainly male- and the so-called work/life balance of today - with women most taking the strain. 

In Episode Two, Hugh Cunningham looks at the battle - long fought but ultimately won - for leisure during the industrial revolution. 

Producer: Beaty Rubens
(Rpt).

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Documentaries

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: History

A chronological history of the so-called work-life balance, from the 18th Century to today

A chronological history of the so-called work-life balance, from the 18th Century to the present, shedding light on the conflicting priorities of British life today

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Work-Life Balance

Episode 2

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