POSITIVE NEWS - Work less, live more: 10 arguments for a shorter working week
Posted 21st January 2022 • Written by www.positive.news • • • • •
As the UK flirts with a four-day week, we look at the benefits of working less, from strengthening families to improving gender equality
Working four days a week on full pay might sound too good to be true, but for some employees in the UK that will soon be a reality.
A pilot project to assess the merits of a shorter working week is to launch there this summer. Companies are being invited to take part in the experiment, which will be run by academics at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Canon is among the firms to have signed up.
The pandemic has forced many of us to reassess our relationship with work, and prompted a growing number of countries to flirt with a four-day week.
As the UK flirts with a four-day week, we look at the benefits of working less, from strengthening families to improving gender equality
Working four days a week on full pay might sound too good to be true, but for some employees in the UK that will soon be a reality.
A pilot project to assess the merits of a shorter working week is to launch there this summer. Companies are being invited to take part in the experiment, which will be run by academics at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Canon is among the firms to have signed up.
The pandemic has forced many of us to reassess our relationship with work, and prompted a growing number of countries to flirt with a four-day week.
Working fewer hours doesn’t necessarily equate to a reduction in productivity. In fact, according to a 2017 trial of a six-hour working day in Sweden, the opposite is true. Despite failing to convince everyone, those behind the Swedish trial claimed that its benefits outweighed the costs.
Daniel Bernmar, a politician who helped bring about the experiment at a retirement home in Gothenburg, told Positive News that the results presented “the complete opposite narrative of the need to work more and to work harder”.
The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has long supported the concept of shorter working weeks. Here, principal fellow at the thinktank, Anna Coote, suggests 10 reasons why it could be good for society.
1. A smaller carbon footprint
Countries with shorter average hours tend to have a smaller ecological footprint. As a nation, the UK is currently consuming well beyond its share of natural resource. Moving out of the fast lane would take us away from the convenience-led consumption that is damaging our environment, and leave time for living more sustainably.
2. A stronger economy
If handled properly, a move towards a shorter working week would improve social and economic equality, easing our dependence on debt-fuelled growth – key ingredients of a robust economy. It would be competitive, too: the Netherlands and Germany have shorter work weeks than Britain and the US, yet their economies are as strong or stronger.
3. Better employees
Those who work less tend to be more productive hour-for-hour than those regularly pushing themselves beyond the 40 hours per week point. They are less prone to sickness and absenteeism and make up a more stable and committed workforce.
4. Lower unemployment
Average working hours may have spiralled, but they are not spread equally across our economy – just as some find themselves working all hours of the day and night, others struggle to find work at all. A shorter working week would help to redistribute paid and unpaid time more evenly across the population.
5. Improved wellbeing
Giving everybody more time to spend as they choose would greatly reduce stress levels and improve overall wellbeing, as well as mental and physical health. Working less would help us all move away from the current path of living to work, working to earn and earning to consume. It would help us all to reflect on and appreciate the things that we truly value in life.
6. More equality between men and women
Women currently spend more time than men doing unpaid work. Moving towards a shorter working week as the ‘norm’ would help change attitudes about gender roles, promote more equal shares of paid and unpaid work, and help revalue jobs traditionally associated with women’s work.
7. Higher quality, affordable childcare
The high demand for childcare stems partly from a culture of long working hours which has spiralled out of control. A shorter working week would help mothers and fathers better balance their time, reducing the costs of full-time childcare. As well as bringing down the cost of childcare, working fewer hours would give parents more time to spend with their children. This opportunity for more activities, experiences and two-way teaching and learning would have benefits for mothers and fathers, as well as their children.
8. More time for families, friends and neighbours
Spending less time in paid work would enable us to spend more time with and care for each other – our parents, children, friends and neighbours – and to value and strengthen all the relationships that make our lives worthwhile and help to build a stronger society.
9. Making more of later life
A shorter and more flexible working week could make the transition from employment to retirement much smoother, spread over a longer period of time. People could reduce their hours gradually over a decade or more. Shifting suddenly from long hours to no hours of paid work can be traumatic, often causing illness and early death.
10. A stronger democracy
We’d all have more time to participate in local activities, to find out what’s going on around us, to engage in politics, locally and nationally, to ask questions and to campaign for change.
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