As one of our all-time most popular articles Work less, play more explored, recent years have seen a mindset shift around work-life balance. More people seem to be questioning whether traditional working patterns truly serve us. Author Douglas Coupland recently described the nine to five as “barbaric”.

Dutch author and journalist Rutger Bregman is among those advocating a shorter working week. “For some of us the line is blurred between work and what we love, so our lives wouldn’t change much,” he told Positive News last year. “But for many, there is a clear distinction between what’s work and the rest of life.

“A poll last year in the UK asked people whether they found their jobs meaningful – 37 per cent said no. I think we need to work less in certain jobs in order to do more of what matters and what is meaningful and important to society.”

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At the beginning of 2017, a Swedish trial of a six-hour working day came to a close. Despite failing to convince everyone, those behind the trial said 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.

The original version of the 10 reasons section of this article was first published by the New Economics Foundation.

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Overwork and a poor work-life balance are problems familiar to many. Not only is a daily commute of two hours or more a reality for 3.7 million workers in the UK, according to the Trades Union Congress, but new research suggests some of us even work in our dreams, mulling over algorithms and problems while asleep. So-called 24 hour capitalism is taking a toll on our relationships, health and wellbeing.

In 2015 we reported on more fulfilling alternatives to the standard working week. “If our needs are to play, love, create and to connect with others and with nature, there seems to be a renewed effort to ask how we can nurture them,” we wrote. “How could we better devote our energy and time to the areas of life that work – and money – cannot reach?”

Signs of change are now emerging. As cases of ‘karoshi’ – death from overwork – rise in Japan, in October its government issued the country’s first ever white paper on the phenomenon. Prime minister Shinzo Abe now plans a legal limit to the amount of overtime a person can work every month and aims, by 2020, to persuade employees to take at least 70 per cent of their paid holiday.

Work-life balance for all is now at the top of the agenda

Meanwhile, more and more companies in Sweden are experimenting with six-hour working days. They think it would make people happier and improve productivity to boot.

In the UK there is a fresh drive to accurately calculate the work people actually do. The Office for National Statistics launched its ‘unpaid work calculator’ in November, allowing people to estimate their earnings if paid to perform tasks such as cleaning, cooking or volunteering.

Working Families, a charity supporting working parents in the UK, said its latest annual National Work Life Week was its most successful to date. “This is testament to the extent to which work-life balance for all is now at the top of the agenda,” said Elizabeth Whitehead from the charity. It included Go Home on Time Day, a day of action to shine a light on overwork when the social media hashtag #timetorebalance reached more than three million people.

Meanwhile the Mental Health Foundation, which considers work demands the biggest challenge to mental health in the UK, advises working ‘smart, not long’. Its tips include urging people to speak up when work becomes too much and to counteract overwork with exercise and hobbies. There are signs too that young people are reluctant to continue the trend of increased toil: 81 per cent of people born after 1980 believe they should set their own work patterns.

Photo: Evan Blaser

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