Britain faces an environmental, social and economic crises. A 21 hour working week is one approach to this triple crunch.
Our guest writer is Anna Coote, head of social policy at the new economics foundation
There’s no such thing as a new idea. But sometimes an old idea deserves a fresh look because things have changed and its hour has come.
One such idea is to shorten the working week. This is proposed in a new report by nef (the new economics foundation) as one way to tackle the environmental, social and economic crises that are shaping politics in the 21st century. But the idea is more radically framed than it used to be. Instead of a minor reduction to, say, 35 hours, the call is for a substantial shift in the balance of paid and unpaid time, moving towards 21 hours as the new standard.
The crises we face are inter-related – the combination is unprecedented. We have rapidly depleting natural resources and accelerating climate change; widening inequalities and growing concern about social fragmentation and disorder; collapse of global financial systems, a deep and intractable economic downturn and astronomical levels of government debt. All this calls for a bold response.
Economic growth over the last 30 to 40 years has depended on a volatile mix of depressed wages and escalating material consumption. People have worked punishingly long hours and then borrowed to consume what they still cannot afford. Hence the credit bubble that brought the global economy to its knees.
Over the same period, the gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically. In the wake of the recession, nearly two and a half million are unemployed. The government is deeply indebted and gearing up for a massive cull of public sector jobs. Meanwhile, many are working long hours to hang on to their employment and increasing numbers say they find it hard to combine paid work with caring for children or having any other kind of life.
People on modest incomes struggle to pay for things they think they need to secure their place in society and to keep up with the pace of life – a car, a second car, household appliances, computer games, airline tickets, ‘convenience’ foods – and much, much more. We have come to regard these accoutrements of middle-class life as our entitlement, signalling identity and status. Now we are urged to buy more to help the economy recover and grow. But the consumerism that sustains western lifestyles is squandering precious natural resources and the climate clock is ticking.
A new, much shorter, ‘standard’ working week would provide an opportunity to spread paid and unpaid time more evenly across the population. That way, more people would have a chance not only to earn a living but also to do the other things that make human society possible – being parents and carers, friends and neighbours, creative individuals and engaged citizens. It would prompt us to adjust our values and expectations, to buy less stuff and live more sustainable lives. It would make it easier for men and women to share paid and unpaid work more equally. It would challenge the discredited model of global capitalism that is fuelled by credit and shopping.
The most obvious objection to a 21-hour week is that it will reduce earnings and hit low-income groups the hardest. nef is proposing a gradual transition, over a decade more, with time to put compensating measures in place. These would include trading wage increments for shorter hours year-on-year, giving employers incentives to take on more staff, limiting paid overtime, training to fill skills gaps, raising the minimum wage, more progressive taxation and arrangements for flexible working to suit the different needs of employees – such as job sharing, school term shifts, care leave and learning sabbaticals.
The French experiment with a maximum of 35 hours, or 1600 hours across the year, had mixed results. Introduced in 2000, it was popular with women with young children but less so with those whose employers made unpredictable changes to when they put in their hours. A key lesson is that people care as much about control over their time as they do about the number of hours they work.
The move to a 21-hour week should not be a matter of coercion. Some will want to work longer hours and that should remain a matter of choice. The point is to change what is generally accepted as the norm. And to consider it as part of a larger transition aimed at building a sustainable future – by safeguarding natural resources, building a more equal and cohesive society, and developing an economy that serves the needs of people and the planet, rather than stripping their assets.
40 Responses to “Britain needs a 21 hour working week”
Luis Enrique
just … incredible. Why do these clowns continue to be taken seriously by the left wing? It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing that so many on the left wing cannot see how useful the NEF is. Surely anybody bothering to think through the consequences of this idea can see what a dumb idea it is?
I’m sympathetic with the desirability of a shorter working weeks (that’s why I see the gradual decrease in working hours over time – which the NEF ought to know about, presuming they’ve looked at the data) as a good thing. I also like the sound of reducing “material consumption” but of course people may work long hours developing sustainable and installing technologies, or substituting labour for materials (not to mention, simply producing intangible goods). Imposing poverty on people is of course on way of reducing material consumption.
I think the right legislation might help increasing the flexibility of working hours, making it easier for people to work 3 or 4 day weeks if they want to (or shorter hours each day) but you have to recognize that in many jobs, a half-time week is less than half as productive as full-time week.
Has anybody here ever worried about the “decline of manufacturing” in this country? How about the UK TV & film industry, architecture? Name your industry. What do you think would happen to all these industries if this daft idea was implemented? What do you think would happen to demand for labour-saving plant and technologies in the UK (i.e. substituting captial for labour in production)? What’s that going to do for the labour share of income, do you suppose? And how about inequality? What do you think this’d do to the gap between people working jobs where 21 hours can be imposed and those – professionals and others – where there’s no way of imposing this rule?
(note – if you really are worried about “consuming the world’s resources” – ask yourself this – if we every make the transition to a solar & wind powered economy, using sustainable carbon based (i.e. from biomass) materials, and whatever else features in the optimistic sustainable future you can envisage, do you think that would entail GDP shrinking? Of course not! GDP growth is NOT the enemy of sustainability)
Luis Enrique
talking of embarrassing … quite a typo. I meant of course, useLESS
NR
Patronising nonsense. The idea is that sending people home after working half a week will conserve resources, stave off global warming, close the gap between rich and poor, and give us better private lives.
But part-time work is more expensive than contracted work beyond typing up letters and flipping burgers. More admin, more fragmentation of work, etc, etc. That’s why most companies don’t use part-time labour. If it wasn’t a big difference, either the companies or the workers would have negotiated such an arrangement already. Unless we’re all stupid?
So we all take a big pay cut, what then? You’ve raised minimum wage to save the low earners, but your tax take hasn’t gone up – if anything it’s nosedived. What will you use to pay for this?
Meanwhile there’s less spare cash to pay for, I dunno, research into new technologies. You know, efficient green energy sources, that sort of thing.
And as we’re so much poorer, we won’t want to ship all that stuff around the planet anymore. Oh well, the Chinese probably won’t mind going back to rice farming. And Haiti and Chile will be fine without all that aid, I’m sure.
At least we’ll all be shagging a lot more, since there’s no money to do anything else. That’s a bonus, isn’t it? No, don’t worry about population size, we’ll just shift to a 10 hour week in a few years…
David Ellis
Under capitalism rising productivity is always met with job cuts rather than wage increases or cuts in the length of the working week. That is the whole reason for the Welfare State that so burdens our existence. The 21-hour week is long, long overdue. It will finally end the war between the sexes and allow our children and communities to cast off the excessive number of policemen and social workers they require to stop them discending into chaos. It can be encouraged through the tax system rather than legislation (10% rate of tax on first 21 hours, 22% on anything over) that will concentrate the minds of industry and commerce whilst at the same time allowing it to retain operational flexibility when needed. Share the wealth, share the work.
Don Quixote
While I admit to having certain reservations about a 21 hour week, I must wonder whether some of the more vocal critics bothered to even read the article before the wrote their objections to the title. Charles Barry and Luis Enrique complain that no one should be forced to work less, but the article clearly says that “the move to 21 hours should not be a matter of coercion”, for example.
Like I said, I think 21 hours is taking it a bit far, but shake up in the standard working week is long overdue. Utah experimented in 2008-09 with a four-day week, where the working day was lengthened to ten hours to make up for lost time. The initiative saved the state $1.8 million in electricity bills (the equivalent of 6000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide) with greater savings expected in coming years, led to a reduction in absenteeism and was popular among employees involved (82% said they would like to continue working under 4/10).
If anyone’s interested the report is availible at:
http://www.dhrm.utah.gov/Working4Utah_FinalReport_Dec2009.pdf