Information about Working Time

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Working time refers to the period of time that an individual spends at paid occupational labor. Unpaid labors such as housework are not considered part of the working week. Many countries regulate the work week by law, such as stipulating minimum daily rest periods, annual holidays and a maximum number of working hours per week.

Prehistory

Early humans were hunters and gatherers. Some estimate gives that they had to spend 12-16 hours a day gathering just enough food to stay alive, leaving no time for socializing and entertainment. After the onset of agriculture, however, working time decreased dramatically.

However, anthropologists have in fact argued that more primitive forms of social organization result in more leisure time than is available in complex societies.^[1] For instance, one camp of !Kung Bushmen was estimated to work two-and-a-half days per week, at around 6 hours a day.^[2]

History

Popular belief depicts pre-industrial life as grim and full of toil. While the standard of living then certainly does not match that of today, several labor historians have pointed out that "full of toil" fails to describe pre-industrial life accurately. In those times, non-enslaved people generally worked fewer hours per year than they do today, though on a less regular cycle: their workweeks exceeded the modern standard during seasons when the extra work would be useful, but fell short of it during others. This depended on the productive system of the land. Intensive agriculture and pastoralism demand a variable amount of effort over the course of the year.

The industrial revolution made it possible to work year-round, since this labor was not tied to the season, and artificial lighting made work possible for the greater part of the day. Peasants, often manipulated into positions of debt and disadvantage by individuals of higher social class, moved from the farms to the factories to work at labor that was tedious and dangerous, for long periods of time. Technological advances during early capitalism made it possible to extract upwards of seventy hours per week of working time from a person. Before collective bargaining and worker protection laws, there was a financial incentive for a company to maximize the return on expensive machinery in spite of the suffering of workers. Records indicate that work schedules as arduous as twelve to sixteen hours per day, six to seven days per week, were demanded of wage earners. This nineteenth century work schedule was the most intense work effort in the history of labor.

The automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford, was an ardent proponent of shorter work hours which he introduced unilaterally in his own factories. Ford claimed that he pursued this policy for business rather than humanitarian reasons. He believed that workers (who were also the main consumers of products) needed adequate leisure time to consume products and thus perceive a need to purchase them. Over the long term, consumer markets needed to be grown. This ecological view of the economy has largely been abandoned as capitalism developed to a mature stage and short-term interests became prevalent.

Over the twentieth century, work hours declined by almost half, mostly because of rising wages brought about by a renewed economic growth, with a supporting role from trade unions and collective bargaining, and progressive legislation. The workweek, in most of the industrialized world, dropped steadily, to about forty hours after World War II. The decline has continued at a slower pace in Europe - for example, France adopted a 35-hour workweek in 2000 - but not in North America. Working hours in industrializing economies like South Korea, though still much higher than the leading industrial countries, are also declining steadily.

Technology has also continued to improve worker productivity, permitting standards of living to rise as hours declined.^[3] However, in the absence of declining work hours in goods-producing industries, there has been a shift in the nature of output in national economies. Economic growth in monetary terms tends to be concentrated in health care, education, government, criminal justice, corrections, and other activities that are regarded as necessary for society rather than those which contribute directly to the production of material goods.

Annual hours over eight centuries

Time	Type of worker	Annual hours
13th century	Adult male peasant, UK	1620 hours
14th century	Casual laborer, UK	1440 hours
Middle Ages	English worker	2309 hours
1400-1600	Farmer-miner, adult male, UK	1980 hours
1840	Average worker, UK	3105-3588 hours
1850	Average worker, U.S.	3150-3650 hours
1987	Average worker, U.S.	1949 hours
1988	Manufacturing workers, UK	1855 hoursdd
2000	Average worker, Germany	1362 hours

(Compiled by Juliet B. Schor from various sources; Germany figure from OECD data)

Importance

Working time is a quantity that can be measured for an individual or, in the aggregate, for a society. In the latter case, a 40-hour workweek would imply that employed individuals within the society, on average, worked 40 hours per week. Most often, the concern of sociologists and policy-makers focuses on the aggregate variables. If an individual works 60 hours per week, it could simply mean that he or she is enthusiastic about his or her job, not a cause for concern. However, if long workweeks become the norm in a society, these hours almost certainly are not voluntary, and it represents a drought of leisure and a threat to public health.

Each society's definition of the ideal workweek differs, but most industrialized nations place this value between 30 and 40 hours per week, during non-vacation time, with between 3 and 5 weeks of (usually paid) vacation. Societies differ in their ability to realize this: For example, in the United States, many workers are afforded little vacation time, or even none at all.

If the work week is too short, this represents underemployment of labor and human capital. This will tend to result in lower real incomes, and a lower standard of living.

Alternately, a workweek that is too long will result in stress-related health problems, on the large scale, as well as a drought of leisure. Furthermore, children are likely to receive less attention from overworked parents, and childrearing is likely to be subjectively worse. The exact ways in which excessive workweeks affect culture, public health, and education are debated, but the existence of such a danger is undisputed.

Furthermore, if demand for labor remains constant, increasing working time for employed workers will correspondingly reduce the number of workers. Firms will lay off employees, and unemployment results. This is profitable for companies and for the upper classes, but a losing situation for all within the labor force: Employed individuals are worked more hours than they wish (if salaried, for constant pay) while individuals who would like work cannot find it.

Several nations have imposed limits on working time in order to combat unemployment. This has been done both on a national level, as in France's 35-hour workweek, and on the company-union level, for example the agreement between Volkswagen and its union to temporarily reduce the workweek to 29 hours to preserve jobs. This policy is controversial among economists.

The work week

The structure of the work week varies considerably for different professions and cultures. Among salaried workers in the western world, the work week often consists of Monday through Friday or Saturday with the weekend set aside as a time of personal work and leisure. This stereotypical structure of the work week has led to the coining of phrases reflecting shared states of mind or moods among workers as they traverse the week.

Mondayitis

'Blue Monday' or 'Mondayitis' or "having a case of the Mondays" is a feeling of weariness and apathy that some workers express when starting the work week on Monday. The phrase entered the pop culture lexicon after its use in the 1999 American comedy film Office Space and it was said that "You get your ass kicked for saying something like that."

Hump day

'Hump day' is a synonym for Wednesday. The idiom is based on the notion that if a worker has made it half-way through the week, struggling uphill from Monday, that the rest of the week is an easier slide toward Friday and the weekend; the end is in sight from the hump, the top of the hill.

TGIF

Main article: TGIF

'TGIF' is an acronym meaning "Thank God It's Friday" or "Thank Goodness It's Friday", an expression of relief that the work week is finally over and that even if the weekend is not full of leisure, at least the drudgery of the workplace is temporarily over.

Pau Hana

'Pa'u Hana' (pronounced "pow hana") is a Hawaiian phrase literally meaning, "finished work", but generally refers to the practice of leaving work early on Friday to start the weekend.

POETS day

Main article: POETS day

Another acronym meaning "Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday", a term for Fridays, used in industries where it is common practice to finish work early at the end of the week. Variations on this are "Punch Out Early Tomorrow's Saturday" (referring to a manual punch time clock),"Push Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday" and "Push Off Early Tomorrow's Sunday" (based on the old 6 day work week). Used in UK [1] and Australia but appears less popular in U.S.A.

Internationally

Several countries have adopted a workweek from Monday morning until Friday noon, either due to religious rules (observation of shabbat in Israel) or the growing predominance of a 35-37.5 hour workweek in continental Europe.

Differences among countries and recent trends

South Korea and Japan

By far, workers in South Korea have the longest work hours in the world. The average South Korean works 2,390 hours each year, according to the OECD. This is over 400 hours longer than the next longest-working country and 34% more hours than the average in the United States. A typical workweek in South Korea is 44 hours or longer. Most people start their day at 8am and end at around 7pm or later, often having dinner before returning to work. Until legislation in 2004 that virtually abolished the six-day workweek in large corporations known as "jaebol", South Korea was the only country in the OECD that worked Saturdays.[3]

Work hours in Japan are decreasing, but many Japanese still work long hours. Recently, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) has issued a draft report recommending major changes to regulations that govern working hours. The centerpiece of the proposal is an exemption from overtime pay for white-collar workers.

South Korea and Japan are the only countries where death by work or "karoshi" is a recognized phenomenon.[4]

Western Europe

In most Western European countries, working time is gradually decreasing. And the decrease is in direct relation with productivity, but less work is created. The European Union's working time directive imposes a 48 hour maximum working week that applies to every member state except the United Kingdom (which has an opt-out meaning that UK-based employees can work longer than 48 hours if they wish, but they cannot be forced to do so). France has enacted a 35-hour workweek by law, and similar results have been produced in other countries such as Germany through collective bargaining. A major reason for the significantly lower annual hours worked in Europe than in the United States is a greater amount of paid annual leave. Fixed employment comes with four to six weeks of vacation as standard.

Australia

In Australia, between 1974 and 1997 no marked change took place in the average amount of time spent at work by Australians of "prime working age" (that is, between 25 and 54 years of age). Throughout this period the average time spent at work by prime working-age Australians (including those who did not spend any time at work) remained stable at between 27 and 28 hours per week. This unchanging average, however, masks a significant redistribution of work from men to women. Between 1974 and 1997 the average time spent at work by prime working-age Australian men fell from 45 to 36 hours per week, while the average time spent at work by prime working-age Australian women rose from 12 to 19 hours per week. In the period leading up to 1997, the amount of time Australian workers spent at work outside the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays also increased (Bittman & Rice, 2002).

United States

In the United States, by contrast, the working time has actually been increasing. Many workers put in longer hours than the forty hour standard. Two weeks of paid annual leave is standard, with some workers receiving three weeks after long periods of service. Frequently, workers are afraid to take up their full entitlement in case it might jeopardise their job security.

In industries like investment banking and many types of law, a forty hour workweek is considered "slacker" behavior and may result in job loss. Medical residents in the United States routinely work long hours as part of their training (see Medical resident work hours).

The United States is an example of a country where workweek policies are not strictly enforced. The U.S. legally allows many types of compensation, and two of the most common are wage and salary labor. Wage earners are compensated on a per-hour basis, whereas salaried workers are compensated on a per-week basis. The 40-hour workweek, in effect, applies only to wage laborers. Legally, they may be required to work more than forty hours, but firms are required to pay time-and-a-half, or 1.5 times the worker's base wage, for each hour of work past forty.

In some states firms are required to pay double-time, or twice the base rate, for each hour of work past 60. This provides an incentive for companies to limit working time, but makes these additional hours more desirable for the worker. It is not uncommon for overtime hours to be accepted voluntarily by wage-earning workers. Unions often treat overtime as a desirable commodity when negotiating how these opportunities shall be partitioned among union members.

Salaried workers are not covered by overtime protections. At the time the laws were written, most salaried workers were relatively autonomous members of the upper-middle and upper classes; and the law was designed this way so that people in these positions weren't given overtime pay for activities such as time spent travelling to out-of-town business meetings (since "work" wasn't usually occurring during travel), or business meetings involving restaurant meals or playing golf. However, nowadays technology has caused most business travel time to involve doing actual work; and most "exempt" positions no longer involve frequent business activities that border on "leisure" (such as the meals or golf). As such some have argued that the concept of being exempt from overtime is now being abused by many companies, as increasing a salaried worker's working hours effectively reduces his or her per-hour pay, resulting in cheaper labor for the enterprise.

Due to the economically conservative political culture of the federal government and most state governments, there is currently no effective movement to address these abuses of the salaried compensation system.

Other Countries

Workers in Poland, Mexico, and the Czech Republic work among the longest hours in the world.

The Kapauku of Papua think it is bad luck to work two consecutive days. The !Kung Bushmen work just two-and-a-half days per week, rarely more than six hours per day. The daily work in the Sandwich Islands is about four hours.[5]

Trends

• Zero hour contracts
• Flexitime

See also

• Paul Lafargue
• Eight-hour day
• Business hours
• Soviet revolutionary calendar
• Waiting for the Weekend
• Workweek

References

• Bittman, Michael & Rice, James Mahmud. (2002). "The spectre of overwork: An analysis of trends between 1974 and 1997 using Australian time-use diaries". Labour and Industry 12 (3), 5–25. (3.4 MB PDF file)

Further reading

• Deirdre McCann (2005), Working Time Laws: A global perspective, ILO, ISBN 92-2-117323-2
• Madeleine Bunting (2004), Willing Slaves: How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives, HarperCollins
• John de Graaf (2003), Take Back Your Time, Berrett-Koehler, ISBN 1-57675-245-3
• Eugene J. McCarthy and William McGaughey (1989), "Nonfinancial Economics: The Case for Shorter Hours of Work", Praeger
• William McGaughey (1981), "A Shorter Workweek in the 1980s", Thistlerose
• Heejung Chung, Marcel Kerkhofs and Peter Ester"Working Time Flexibility in European Companies" , European Foundation.
• Colette Fagan, Ariane Hegewisch and Jane Pillinger "Out of Time: why Britain needs a new approach to working time flexibility", TUC

External links

• Hours of Work in U.S. History from EH.NET by Robert Whaples
• The Guardian, August 20, 2005, "Work until you drop: how the long-hours culture is killing us" (UK focus)
• Evans, J., D. Lippoldt and P. Marianna(2001), Trends in Working Hours in OECD Countries, OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers n° 45, OECD, Paris. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/674061356827
• Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness
• People for a Shorter Workweek Blog Contains links to shorter worktime groups as well as other important links.
• ShorterWorkWeek.com A collection of writings on the prospect of reducing work hours in the United States
• Explanation of Working Time Limits (48 hour week) in the UK and how the opt-out works