The UK’s leading independent think tank is predicting that a shorter working week is set to become the new norm. nef (the new economics foundation) has published its study, 21 hours, which is forecasting a major shift in the number of hours we’ll be spending at the office in the future. “So many of us live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume. And our consumption habits are squandering the earth’s natural resources”, says Anna Coote, co-author of the report and Head of Social Policy at nef. “Spending less time in paid work could help us to break this pattern. We’d have more time to be better parents, better citizens, better carers and better neighbours. And we could even become better employees: less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive.”
Key figures from the study reveal just how different our working patterns are compared to the way we used to work. Since 1981, two-adult households have added six hours to their combined weekly workload - adding up to nearly a whole working day extra. The authors propose that working the equivalent of just 21 hours a week could bring about a range of benefits. These benefits encompass healing the rifts in divided Britain by helping to evenly spread paid work across the population; reducing carbon emissions thanks to people having more time to live the good life; a robust and prosperous economy with more women entering the workforce and more men taking an active role at home.
