Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

A feminist view of working-time reductions

Katy Wiese 3rd January 2023

Reducing working time is necessary to decouple work from growth. Well designed, it could redistribute care more evenly.

working time,days,hours,reductions,care,gender lens,women,feminist
Picking up kids from the kindergarten doesn’t happen to fall only on Fridays (riopatuca / shutterstock.com)

Giving people more freedom from work has many benefits. First, it can allow them to live a more sustainable life, which is necesssary to address the climate emergency. Living more sustainably sometimes takes more time. For example, going from a 40- to a 32-hour work week gives people more time to grow and cook their own food, repair broken goods, instead of buying new ones, and walk, cycle or use public transport, instead of driving a private car.

Secondly, as outlined in the recent European Environmental Bureau policy brief ‘Reimagining work for a just transition’, working-time reductions are an important ingredient of a just transition, as they help reduce the dependence of work on economic growth. Exponential growth is compatible neither with an economy that falls within planetary boundaries nor with one that is socially just. Working-time reductions can redistribute work more evenly in a post-growth society: in a steady-state or non-growing economy, fewer outputs are generated, which means fewer working hours are needed.

Last but not least, more time off work improves workers’ wellbeing. With extra time, workers can pursue meaningful activities for leisure and recreation. It also frees up time to redistribute unpaid care work, improve community services and increase political participation, all of which can have positive impacts on democracy and social wellbeing.

Working-time reductions must comprise collectively agreed decreases in time spent by a worker in employment. Aside from shorter working weeks, this can include more paid holidays or early retirement. Whether implementation is national, sectoral or at the company level, it is crucial that there is an underpinning collective agreement, with no cut in pay and with compensatory staff recruitment.

An inspiring pilot project called the 4 Day Week Campaign has brought together 70 companies (representing 3,300 workers) in the United Kingdom to trial a four-day, 32-hour working week with no loss of pay. The initial results have been very positive for productivity, wellbeing and tackling the cost-of-living crisis.

Unpaid work

Crucially, reducing working time can help redistribute unpaid work, such as care and domestic responsibilities, more evenly in our societies. We still see big inequalities in free time available, particularly between men and women.

Women continue to do most care work around the world. In the European Union, more than three-quarters of all unpaid domestic and care work is done by women and the pandemic has only exacerbated these inequalities. Studies based on data from Germany, France, the UK, the United States and Italy show that women contribute on average 15 hours more per week to unpaid care than men.

Gender inequalities in unpaid work (not to mention pay) are influenced by work arrangements. Further studies show that women who work part-time do one hour more unpaid care work per day than women who work full-time—part-time working men however do not. Many women in turn choose to work part-time to juggle their job and care responsibilities: 29 per cent of women in the EU who do so, compared with just 6 per cent of men, name care responsibilities as the main reason.

This creates a vicious circle: fewer working hours often result in lower income and lower contributions to future pensions. Both widen the gender pension and pay gap.

Environmental, labour, economic and other policies are often not gender-neutral. If gender (or other relevant social category) is not considered, they unwittingly reproduce or even risk exacerbating inequalities. For example, the Common Agricultural Policy, which consumes a third of the EU budget, is not only environmentally damaging but also overlooks gender dynamics. While research shows that female farmers tend to adopt more sustainable farming practices, the funding scheme does not address their needs or tap their potential.

Gender lens

Let us apply the gender lens to working-time reductions. One of the most elaborated policy proposals, gaining traction worldwide, is Friday off—a four-day working week. A positive side-effect would be its environmental impact: one day less commuting has been shown to cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet this might not be so positive in terms of achieving a more equitable share of (unpaid) care work.

The care responsibilities of men often take the form of sporadic, discrete tasks—such as gardening or repairing things—which can be flexibly scheduled. But women tyically deal with activities—such as taking care of family members and friends—on a daily basis. So reducing the working week by a day might not reduce the burden for women.

That is why many feminist scholars advocate instead shortening the working day itself. Working fewer hours per day would allow women to arrange care work more flexibly while simultaneously freeing up time for men to take on more of the daily care activities, such as taking kids to school.

Working fewer hours per day can also have positive impacts on mobility patterns. Men are more likely to drive a car, while women are more likely to use public transport. Women in general tend to have more sustainable transport choices. Fewer working hours per day could not only allow men to take on more of the care work but also to adopt more sustainable transport modes.

That is not to say that a four-day working week is off the table. As with many ambitious and visionary policy proposals, working-time reduction should be considered as part of a package. And as long as it is designed with environmental and social and gender justice in mind, the potential is enormous because of its flexible nature. It is though, equally, no silver bullet and its form should fit the conditions of particular localities and regions and specific sectors.

Katy Wiese
Katy Wiese

Katy Wiese is an ecofeminist who works for the European Environmental Bureau as policy manager for economic transition and gender equality.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u421983467f bb39 37d5862ca0d5 0 Ending Britain’s “Brief Encounter” with BrexitStefan Stern
u421983485 2 The Future of American Soft PowerJoseph S. Nye
u4219834676d582029 038f 486a 8c2b fe32db91c9b0 2 Trump Can’t Kill the Boom: Why the US Economy Will Roar Despite HimNouriel Roubini
u42198346fb0de2b847 0 How the Billionaire Boom Is Fueling Inequality—and Threatening DemocracyFernanda Balata and Sebastian Mang
u421983441e313714135 0 Why Europe Needs Its Own AI InfrastructureDiane Coyle

Most Popular Articles

startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer
u421983467 2a24 4c75 9482 03c99ea44770 3 Trump’s Trade War Tears North America Apart – Could Canada and Mexico Turn to Europe?Malcolm Fairbrother
u4219834676e2a479 85e9 435a bf3f 59c90bfe6225 3 Why Good Business Leaders Tune Out the Trump Noise and Stay FocusedStefan Stern
u42198346 4ba7 b898 27a9d72779f7 1 Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political LegacyJan-Werner Müller
u4219834676574c9 df78 4d38 939b 929d7aea0c20 2 The End of Progess? The Dire Consequences of Trump’s ReturnJoseph Stiglitz

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

KU Leuven advertisement

The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641