Could a 21-hour working week work?

This article was first published in The Age in August 2010

Call me a lazy bludger, but I have strived throughout my life to avoid permanent full-time paid employment. Over the years, I have cobbled together combinations of part-time positions, volunteer work and ''home duties'' with the kids.

I realise that this is a luxury not afforded to many and feel fortunate to have worked in industries in which part-time work is available, paid at a reasonable rate and doesn't necessarily single you out as being unambitious or slack. Financially, it has meant going without the new TVs, fancy clothes or overseas trips that friends might have, but nonetheless I have always remained steadfast in my belief that a long working week compromises your enjoyment of life.

When the New Economics Foundation, an independent think tank, released a report encouraging people to engage in a "thought experiment" in which the standard working week was reduced to 21 hours, even I thought it sounded a little wacky. But I starting coming around to the idea and began wondering why we never even question the assumption that we all want to work 40-hour weeks.

For some reason, we seem wedded to this ideal of eight hours a day, five days a week, as if it were, quite literally, cast in stone on that day when Melbourne stonemasons downed tools in 1856. We accept ''40'' as if it is the magical number that allows people to work at their best, optimises productivity and without which the economy will go to ruin.

What is ridiculous about our unquestioning attachment to the 40-hour week is how few people are actually working it.

According to the Australia Institute, Australians clock up one of the longest working weeks in the world, with full-time workers putting in 44 hours on average each week. Whether or not people are financially compensated for this extra work (the majority are not), many workers report being dissatisfied with the long hours expected from them, either explicitly or implicitly, by their employer and express a desire to work less. Indeed, research shows that the benefits of reducing the standard working week could be huge.

Most people still aspire to the adage about working to live, rather than living to work. However, our beliefs about how we should live have significantly altered over the past few decades. As Australia Institute founder Clive Hamilton points out, we have scaled-up our lifestyle expectations to such a degree that we feel compelled to work longer hours, to earn more, only so we can buy more. Ultimately, of course, this ascent of consumerism is unsustainable on both a personal and an environmental level. Working less might give us pause to re-examine our materialistic desires and allow us the time to find ways to live more sustainably.

A shorter working week might also reap positive health benefits. Research commissioned by the Queensland Department of Industrial Relations identified a relationship between longer working hours and sleep-deprivation, obesity, alcoholism and cardiovascular disease.

Not only could working fewer hours lead to less stress and longer, better-quality sleep, it would also give people more opportunity to engage in exercise, to visit health professionals regularly and to become less reliant on unhealthy or fast-food options. Crucially, it would allow people more time to relax, whether that means going for walks, seeing friends, reading, listening to music or watching TV.

But the clincher is the amount of time it would free up to spend with people we care about. Whether it is spent kicking a footy with the kids, caring for elderly parents, engaging in volunteer work or in organised activities, it is undoubtedly good for our relationships and for the cohesiveness and well-being of the wider community.

I'm not going to claim to be an expert on macroeconomics or the deregulation of the labour market. Despite the New Economics Foundation's claims that shorter working weeks combined with fair wages for all could result in a better distribution of paid work, address some of the issues facing women in the workforce and help us move towards a decarbonised economy, I have no doubt that the business community would close down any attempts to shorten the working week significantly with the claim that "we can't afford it".

However, that's not to say that we should not, after more than 150 years, review the idea of the 40-hour working week and ask ourselves some crucial questions: Will accumulating more ''stuff'' make us happier? How do we value, financially reward and share different kinds of work? And how can we actualise the kind of lives that we really want?

Original article at: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/less-time-on-the-job-could-really-work-20100827-13w07.html