A shorter working week

Analysis

BBC

News, Politics

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2019

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the working week gradually got shorter and shorter. As technological advances powered economic growth, workers reaped the gains not just in the form of higher pay, but more leisure time. The economist John Maynard Keynes predicted we'd eventually all be working a 15-hour week. Even in the 1970s the expectation that 8 hour days would be reduced to 6 was widely held across the political spectrum. But this all ground to a halt in the 1980s. In this edition of Analysis Sonia Sodha explores the great leisure mystery: whatever happened to this dream of working less? And why is the idea of a 4-day working week gaining traction on the political left in Britain? What would a society that ditches the long-hours culture, and re-embraces the leisure dream look like, and is it really possible to achieve this without increasing inequality between the haves and have-nots of the labour market?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.6	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.4	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable
0:14.3	experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC
0:20.4	makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	BBC Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts.
0:41.0	Thanks for listening to this edition of Analysis, the podcast that looks podcasts. find out what happened to the dream of working less and why this debate is being
0:54.0	resurrected.
0:56.7	BBC Radio 2.
0:58.7	Happy Monday Sports Lovers, even non-Sports Lovers.
1:07.0	Monday morning, that sinking realization that the five day countdown to the weekend
1:16.4	has just started all over again.
1:18.4	It's just another manic Monday. Even if you love your job you're probably no stranger to the Sunday evening blues.
1:29.0	For those of us who dread going into work, it's something we've been school to think we have to put up with in order to pay the bills.
1:38.8	But how did the five day 40 or so our week come to be seen as standard. Are we working the right amount? Or have we
1:46.6	got the balance between work and time off fundamentally wrong? I think work is an important
1:52.0	part of life, but it's not supposed to be life. Life is a lot more than work, and I think it's important that we all recognize both family and friends and society as a whole is much more than work and I think one of the things society has sort of gotten stuck on is that we need to work more
2:10.9	Daniel Bernmarr is a local councillor who represents the Left Party in Gothenburg, Sweden.
2:17.0	His vision is for everyone to have a six-hour working day.
2:20.7	Forget 9-5.
	...

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