- Title
- ‘A life less ordinary’ : to downshift or not to downshift : why people make or don’t make decisions to change their lives?
- Creator
- Goulding, Carmel
- Date
- 2022
- Type
- Text; Thesis; PhD
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/195661
- Identifier
- vital:18563
- Abstract
- A fundamental condition of modernity is the expansion of choice, with the range of options widening on how we live our lives, and whom we spend our time with. We are no longer defined by a clear set of social ties which bind us to our life situation. We can choose our friends, geographic locality, employment and, perhaps, our gender and that of our children. We can if we choose, substantially alter the way we live, and some people do as is evidenced by the phenomenon popularly known as downshifting. Downshifting involves a voluntary reduction in working time and income, in return for a slower pace of life and increased free time and is generally conceived as a conscious change in ways of consuming, working and relating. This thesis seeks to explore the questions why people downshift and how the decision is sustained over the life course. It does this through a two-staged, longitudinal qualitative study of people who have downshifted in Australia and the United Kingdom. The thesis is built on the assumption that downshifting is a rational choice. People do calculate risk and constraints and the range of options as part of the decision process. However, explanations of action firmly rooted in economic rationality do not adequately account for what influences and shapes preferences and pays little attention to the micro worlds of individual choice-making. This dissertation offers an account of social action built around the concept of bounded rationality whereby the fluid, linked communities evident in modern life, act as a mediating factor in the initial choice and as well as over the downshifter life course. To date, there has been limited empirical research on the life course of downshifters. This doctoral study fills the knowledge gap.; Doctor of Philosophy
- Publisher
- Federation University Australia
- Rights
- All metadata describing materials held in, or linked to, the repository is freely available under a CC0 licence
- Rights
- Copyright Carmel Goulding
- Rights
- Restricted access by author for 2 years starting 20 October 2023
- Subject
- Downshifting; Ways of living; Sustainable lifestyles; Lifestyle choice; Behavioural economics; Sociological imagination; Life course research
- Thesis Supervisor
- Reeves, Keir
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