Should underemployment be considered as a lifestyle choice?

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I've heard a lot of people with asperger's are underemployed. I'm wondering if this is by choice to reduce stress and give you more time to do your own thing? Or do people want better jobs, more recognition etc. but find it hard to get?

I wanted to find other people's opinion on this because I'm considering being underemployed on purpose (in the view that I have a masters in mechanical engineering, but I think I should just make websites).

I have difficulty working 5 days a week and holding down a job for a long period of time because it's socially draining for me. If I work 3 or 4 days a week, I could have some money to pay the bills, and spend the rest of the time on my own interests, which would hopefully grow into making money somewhere down the line.

I'm currently getting paid £10 per hour doing website design work I can do from home at my own leisure. If I went and got an engineering job, I would get about £12.50 per hour and it would be a lot more "work" from an asperger's point of view. I like the website stuff because it is a nice balance of design and logic, which suits me very well. I've always wanted to do something meaningful at work, but I've come to realise I probably won't at an engineering job, and that a large chunk of my skills will be underutilised. I don't see how making a bracket is any more meaningful than making software.

I worked with someone briefly who I admire as a great engineer. He doesn't actually have an engineering job any more and he's not even 30, but instead works for a big business for big money. He gets his engineering kicks in his spare time as part of a racing team. He told me he loved engineering, but it was a s**t job.

Basically, I'm not sure if I should be purposefully underemployed so that I can be happy in my own way. I feel like it's a waste, but on the other hand, it might be the truer path.

I am underemployed (20 hrs/week), and it's forced, necessary and a lifestyle choice, all three. I am an adult school teacher, and my hours are limited by the district to 20 hours/week. It's necessary (at least at the moment), because I don't think I could hold down a 40 hours/week job. I'd go (more) insane; I need alone time. It's a lifestyle choice because I could go out and get a different job (In fact, I want to do just that--see this post (clicky).) However, perhaps if I found a job I actually enjoyed, I wouldn't feel that I only needed to work part time. /shrug

Anyway, if you feel that it is healthier for you to work part time, and you can still afford to support yourself, why not do it?

I work part time. My husband thinks me going full time be too much for me because things are different now than they were before when I worked full time.

I'm planning to go on welfare very soon so I can say yes.

I work part time, as a cleaner. It's partly necessity (there aren't a lot of full time jobs anymore) but even if there were other jobs I would stick with this one. I couldn't cope with much more than this.

I worked full time for 2 years and I couldn't do it again. It led to a serious breakdown. I work part time in a library right now and am taking a bookkeeping course; I hope to do that part time as well.

I make enough to make ends meet. Although I wouldn't say no to having more money, it's just not worth it to me.

Yes, I am someone who chooses part time work. There are several reasons for this.

One is that I spent a couple of years working full time and it almost killed me. I had to do it because the full time job was the only one I could get and I needed to pay my rent. So I stuck with it until I had saved enough money to leave. Every day I was so exhausted (mentally, physically, emotionally) from spending the day constantly interacting with a busy environment full of people and having to pretend to be NT that I would literally come home and do nothing but sit staring at the wall in an attempt to recover from it. I was unable to take care of any other aspect of my life - my flat and clothes were dirty, I was unable to cook for myself, I wasn't even able to do any of the things I loved any more because I had nothing left of myself to give to anything after doing that all day every day. When I had days off that was my recovery time, but by the time I had recovered I had to go back again! I was completely bewildered how other people managed to have a full time job and then go out and do other things and spend even more time around people. I didn't know at the time that I was autistic, only that I was unable to cope. I don't know how I managed for as long as I did, and it was a horrible time in my life.

The other reason is that I have low living costs compared to most people (no family, car, TV, fancy phone or other gadgets, no expensive hobbies) and so fortunately I don't need to go through that to manage financially. Even if I had an easy and AS-friendly job I wouldn't want to, as I want to spend my time engaged with the things I love. Why would I choose to be miserable with more money instead of happy? I completely cannot comprehend the general mentality of doing a job you hate every day until you're a pensioner. What kind of craziness is that when you could be having a fulfilling life instead?

That doesn't apply to people who actually enjoy their jobs, of course. I'm working on making what I love into something financially viable (as I'm sure many other AS people do or want to). If I can do that, I would love to work full time!

I worked part time in my teens painting for my uncle, then worked two full-time summers when I was 18 and 19, then worked part time in college when I was 20, and now four years later, that's where I've left off. Each job, very different from the previous, proved to me that I was completely incapable of working. Tried working with people, tried working mostly alone in a warehouse, tried working outside vs. inside, etc. Obviously, a lot of people have accused me of being lazy, and half the time I believe it but deep down, I know that I work harder than anyone when I'm passionate about it.

Underemployment is different than choosing to work part time.

There are reasons to choose part time work - even if I were to work I'd not start working at more than 20 hours a week.

Nobody would choose underemployment.

I think underemployment is different than part-time work, as there often isn't a choice with underemployment. It just means that someone with a college education is still flipping burgers because they can't find a job in their field, or in the case of Aspies, it's because our social disability makes it harder to get through the job interview process. Plenty of people work part time and make enough money to live off it, while someone who is underemployed usually isn't able to live off their income from work. That's why there are plenty of people with disabilities who have jobs, yet they still get SSI.

I think I'm going to vomit reading this thread.

You have no right to work part time and collect public benefits because you want to have time to focus on fun stuff.

Public benefits are for people who really need them because they can't work, not people who don't want to work because it interferes with their special interest.

If you want to work part time, live a minimalistic life style and support yourself, that's totally cool.

If you are taking public benefits because you don't want to work but can work, that is very wrong.

I've been unemployed for 4 and a half years and have never worked, but not on purpose. I do actively look for work, and I've been for 6 interviews in the last 3 months. I have always done voluntary work to prove that I do want to work and that I can work, and I've also been doing a course to boost my basic skills and social confidence in employment satisfaction. Apparently that is not good enough, and it seems like your CV has got to be perfect, and because I am not a perfectionist, I cannot get my CV right. Also different people have different ways of laying out a CV, so when I thought my CV looked right, another proffessional from some other place linked to unemployment services wanted it differently, so it seems like everybody has got a different idea of how your CV should be laid out.

I also have a personal employment advisor that helps with people with disabilities to find work. Unfortunately I am unable to claim ESA because when I last tried I could not get in, and anyway the government are changing the ESA benefits next year to make it even harder for people to claim it, so I will have even less chance. So I have to stick to JSA, which is a pain because they pressurise you more, disability or no disability, and if your job search don't meet their standards then you will be kicked off the benefit without no say in it.

It's impossible having people like David Cameron running this ridiculous country, cutting back services and people's jobs and chucking them on JSA, then wondering why they're not in paid employment and making them all out to be ''scroungers'', which is generalizing way too harshly.
I am only looking for basic work to start off with, like part-time cleaning jobs, but even those I can't seem to get in, they'd rather take on foreign people instead. Excuse me, I am a British young person who has never had job before but who desperately wants a job, and I have a mild disability what I didn't ask for - GIVE ME A CHANCE AND STOP CALLING ME A SCROUNGER!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

Last edited by Joe90 on 07 Nov 2012, 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Only if you've got some other legitimate way of making money for yourself (and by "making money" I don't mean leeching it off the government).

Better yet... steal from those who don't deserve it.

I'm puzzled by your post. I did not see anything in this thread which suggested anyone here was doing such a thing. Aren't you just jumping to conclusions about part time workers? If my post was one of the ones which made you feel nauseous, I fully support myself with my part-time work. It's perfectly possible to do so.

There is nothing wrong in wanting to do part-time work, not everybody does full-time work.

What makes you think everyone in this thread has public benefits? The only post that disgusted me was the one about going on welfare as his choice of being underemployed.

If people are working part time because they want to and they can support themselves without needing any assistance nor are on social security, then that is okay. But what if them working full time effects their mental or physical health like Jinks has described in this thread? I think that would qualify them for disability benefits since they have proven they are unable to work full time.