Photo Credit (Pixeles)
In the early ’90s, I was a hospital doctor who worked 100-hour weeks and more. I was down and out, unable to do much for sick folks because of those risky shift schedules. The insane hours of doctors were reduced, but it appears that they might be coming back with the new junior doctors’ contracts.
As for the UK workers’ ability to opt out of the 48-hour maximum working week, David Cameron plans to push on this during EU negotiations in Brussels. The plan calls for long hours of work.
However, how about we go to the bottom of the problem? Imagine if the workweek was reduced for all employees. Our health and happiness would improve, and we would live in a more equitable and sustainable society.
Keeping output constant while cutting hours is an idea that has likely never occurred to most economists.
In addition to the increased risk of stroke and heart disease associated with lengthy working hours, a prominent public health physician has lately stated that these hours are a major contributor to mental illness.
Spending less time at work would free up more time for things like taking care of family and children, volunteering as a school governor, visiting elderly neighbors, or planning a football game. With more time in one’s hands, one may weave the web of mutual aid and support that keeps society functioning.
Six million Britons put in more than forty-five hours a week, and 1.85 million are out of work. A shorter work week for everyone would lead to a more equitable allocation of available jobs, but it would have to happen slowly, along with some reskilling and training. There would be fewer people working excessive hours and fewer people unemployed as a result.
A living wage, which is now widely supported across the political spectrum in Britain, is an essential component for low-income individuals. It would satisfy pent-up demand among higher earners; for instance, in London, just 3% of positions marketed as part-time had salaries of average or above, according to the Timewise Foundation.
Since dads would have more time to take care of the house and children, it would also contribute to gender equality. While 57% of working women put in more than 30 hours per week, 85% of working men do the same.
Another way to lessen the impact of climate change is to work fewer hours. Shorter workweeks are associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions for several reasons, including less consumption, according to a study by the US Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Every politician should make reducing the workweek a key priority in light of these advantages. However, it encounters significant biases. Would the financial system collapse? In an open-all-hours society, how would we all get along? Furthermore, wouldn’t we become a country of slouches?
Examining other nations provides an easy solution to all of this. According to the OECD, Germans put in six hours less work each week than Britons and Dutchmen put in five. Germany and the Netherlands are both experiencing healthy economic growth, and the Dutch are more famous for their passion for cycling than for their couch potato problem.
Working shorter hours boosts productivity, which is defined as output per working hour. Reduced workweeks are associated with greater production in the wealthiest nations (for more on this, see OECD data). Working more than 40 hours a week was discovered to reduce productivity among Ford’s first workforce. This is likely to be even more true for those whose jobs involve information rather than physical labor; after all, who among us has ever come up with a brilliant idea while completely worn out?
Because of all this, it’s possible that we can work fewer hours each week and still achieve the same results. “It has probably never entered the heads of most economists… that hours could be shortened and output maintained,” remarked John Hicks, a British economist from the 20th century.
It is true that not all businesses could function normally from Monday through Thursday from nine to five. This is especially true in the service industry and healthcare facilities. This is just a management problem, and fixing it would lead to more equitable distribution of available tasks.
Our cultural roots in the Lutheran work ethic and the idea that we are only as good as our efforts make this a particularly formidable cultural barrier. Changing such long-established individual and societal standards is no easy feat. It appears like a worthwhile task, though, considering how weary most of us are at the end of the week and how much we would love to spend more time tending to our loved ones, communities, and ourselves (the part of life that cannot be deemed more “productive”).
Some Swedish nursing homes and hospitals are testing out six-hour days, and some businesses, like digital marketing agency Serps Invaders in Edinburgh, are cutting down to four days of work per week (with the added flexibility of remote work and unannounced days off).
It’s not a novel concept; in fact, it dates back to the 1930s, when John Maynard Keynes anticipated that, by the present day, everyone would be working just fifteen hours a week. It is high time that we began immediately.
