Anna Coote is head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation in London. She is a co-editor of "Time on Our Side" and co-author of "21 Hours."

We used to send children down mines, sack women when they got married and expect workers to put in 12-hour day, six days a week. For more than 200 years, we have associated better working conditions and shorter hours with human progress. An average workweek of 40 hours nowadays looks old fashioned and backward.

Workers on shorter hours are under less stress, get sick less often and are more loyal. Plus a shorter workweek is better for the environment.

We need a slow but steady move toward a 30-hour week for all workers. This will help solve a lot of connected problems: overwork, unemployment, overconsumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other and simply to enjoy life.

People working shorter hours generally have a smaller ecological footprint. If you are tied to the workplace for 40-plus hours, you don’t have much time for the rest of your life. So things have to speed up. You travel by plane or car instead of train, foot or bike. Convenience-driven consumption takes a heavy toll on the environment.

Some say it can’t be done because wages are too low. So let’s raise wages. No one should have to work long hours just to get by. Some say it’s uncompetitive. But there’s no match between average working hours and the strength of a country’s economy. The Netherlands and Germany have a shorter workweek than the United States and Britain. But the Dutch and German economies are stronger, not weaker. Workers on shorter hours tend to be more productive hour-for-hour. They are under less stress, they get sick less often and they make a more loyal and committed workforce.

We ended slavery, built the railways and won votes for women. All these once seemed impossible. We can do the same for working hours. It’s only a matter of time.



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