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In 1956, then–Vice President Richard Nixon declared that the four-day workweek was inevitable. He quickly retracted that statement, but now, at least in Europe, it seems he might have been right after all. Average working time is falling in Europe: we now work almost one hour less per week than we did about ten years ago. Many have argued that a thirty-hour week is the future. Shorter working hours would be good for the environment, for productivity, for employee health, for society at large, or for all of it combined. So, do the recent figures in Europe mean it’s time for proponents of the thirty-hour week to pop the champagne corks? Not just yet. The problem lies in the “on average” part. The decrease in working time comes almost exclusively from the spread of part-time employment. For full-time employees nothing has changed — their working hours have remained the same.

The Thirty-Hour Week — on Average Currently, one in five jobs in Europe are part-time. The phenomenon is most pronounced in the Netherlands, where over three in four working women and one in four working men hold a part-time job. So the thirty-hour workweek is a reality in this country — but again, only on average. The problem is that the growth of part-time jobs across Europe risks reinforcing existing economic and gender inequalities rather than fighting them. Figures show that the “choice” of part-time work is rarely completely free, but rather determined by job availability and family obligations. Many take up part-time jobs because there’s no full-time work available, while for many others it’s the only way they can combine caring tasks with work. Meanwhile, this kind of working-time reduction is paid for entirely by individual employees, with both their wages and pension suffering. Part-time jobs also offer poorer career prospects and are often insecure, meaning not only are the workers’ current earnings lower, but their future income is jeopardized as well. Finally, since it’s mostly women who are in part-time jobs, this sort of working-time reduction is unlikely to create a more level playing field between the sexes. Working-time reduction defined by individual “choice” is thus not the way forward. Shorter hours are something everyone should be able to benefit from, so they need to be organized in a way that guarantees equal results for all workers.