Working time
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Working time refers to the period of time that an individual spends at paid occupational labor. Unpaid labors such as housework are not considered part of the working week. Many countries regulate the work week by law, such as stipulating minimum daily rest periods, annual holidays and a maximum number of working hours per week.
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[edit] Prehistory
Early humans were hunters and gatherers. Anthropologists have in fact argued that more "primitive" forms of social organization result in more leisure time than is available in complex societies.[1] For instance, one camp of !Kung Bushmen was estimated to work two-and-a-half days per week, at around 6 hours a day.[2]
[edit] History
Popular belief depicts pre-industrial life as grim and full of toil. While the standard of living then certainly does not match that of today, several labor historians have pointed out that "full of toil" fails to describe pre-industrial life accurately[citation needed]. In those times, non-enslaved people generally worked fewer hours per year than they do today, though on a less regular cycle: their workweeks exceeded the modern standard during seasons when the extra work would be useful, but fell short of it during others. This depended on the productive system of the land. Intensive agriculture and pastoralism demand a variable amount of effort over the course of the year.
The industrial revolution made it possible to work year-round, since this labor was not tied to the season, and artificial lighting made work possible for the greater part of the day. Peasants, often manipulated into positions of debt and disadvantage by individuals of higher social class, moved from the farms to the factories to work at labor that was tedious and/or dangerous, for long periods of time. Technological advances during early capitalism made it possible to extract upwards of seventy hours per week of working time from a person. Before collective bargaining and worker protection laws, there was a financial incentive for a company to maximize the return on expensive machinery in spite of the suffering of workers. Records indicate that work schedules as arduous as twelve to sixteen hours per day, six to seven days per week, were demanded of wage earners. This nineteenth century work schedule was the most intense work effort in the history of labor.
The automobile manufacturer, Henry Ford, was an ardent proponent of shorter work hours which he introduced unilaterally in his own factories. Ford claimed that he pursued this policy for business rather than humanitarian reasons. He believed that workers (who were also the main consumers of products) needed adequate leisure time to consume products and thus perceive a need to purchase them. Over the long term, consumer markets needed to be grown. This ecological view of the economy has largely been abandoned as capitalism developed to a mature stage and short-term interests became prevalent.
Over the twentieth century, work hours declined by almost half, mostly because of rising wages brought about by a renewed economic growth, with a supporting role from trade unions and collective bargaining, and progressive legislation. The workweek, in most of the industrialized world, dropped steadily, to about forty hours after World War II. The decline has continued at a slower pace in Europe - for example, France adopted a 35-hour workweek in 2000 - but not in North America. Working hours in industrializing economies like South Korea, though still much higher than the leading industrial countries, are also declining steadily.
Technology has also continued to improve worker productivity, permitting standards of living to rise as hours declined.[3] However, in the absence of declining work hours in goods-producing industries, there has been a shift in the nature of output in national economies. Economic growth in monetary terms tends to be concentrated in health care, education, government, criminal justice, corrections, and other activities that are regarded as necessary for society rather than those which contribute directly to the production of material goods.[citation needed]
[edit] Annual hours over eight centuries
| Time | Type of worker | Annual hours |
|---|---|---|
| 13th century | Adult male peasant, UK | 1620 hours |
| 14th century | Casual laborer, UK | 1440 hours |
| Middle Ages | English worker | 2309 hours |
| 1400-1600 | Farmer-miner, adult male, UK | 1980 hours |
| 1840 | Average worker, UK | 3105-3588 hours |
| 1850 | Average worker, U.S. | 3150-3650 hours |
| 1987 | Average worker, U.S. | 1949 hours |
| 1988 | Manufacturing workers, UK | 1855 hours |
| 2000 | Average worker, Germany | 1362 hours |
(Compiled by Juliet B. Schor from various sources; Germany figure from OECD data[citations needed])
[edit] Importance
Working time is a quantity that can be measured for an individual or, in the aggregate, for a society. In the latter case, a 40-hour workweek would imply that employed individuals within the society, on average, worked 40 hours per week. Most often, the concern of sociologists and policy-makers focuses on the aggregate variables. If an individual works 60 hours per week, it could simply mean that he or she is enthusiastic about his or her job, not a cause for concern. However, if long workweeks become the norm in a society, these hours almost certainly are not voluntary, and it represents a drought of leisure and a threat to public health.
Most industrialized nations legally mandate a maximum work week length of between 30 and 40 hours per week, and, require 3 to 5 weeks per year of holiday.[citation needed] However, the actual hours of work per week cannot fall below a certain minimum without compromising a nation’s ability to produce the basic material standards of living.
If the work week is too short compared to that society's ideal, then the society suffers from underemployment of labor and human capital. All else being equal, this will tend to result in lower real incomes and a lower standard of living than what could be had with a longer work week in the same society.
In contrast, a work week that is too long will result in more material goods at the cost of stress-related health problems as well as a drought of leisure. Furthermore, children are likely to receive less attention from overworked parents, and childrearing is likely to be subjectively worse. The exact ways in which excessive workweeks affect culture, public health, and education are debated, but the existence of such a danger is undisputed.
Several nations have imposed limits on working time in order to combat unemployment. This has been done both on a national level, as in France's 35-hour workweek, and on the company-union level, for example the agreement between Volkswagen and its union to temporarily reduce the workweek to 29 hours to preserve jobs. This policy is controversial among economists.
[edit] Days of the work week
The structure of the work week varies considerably for different professions and cultures. Among salaried workers in the western world, the work week often consists of Monday through Friday or Saturday with the weekend set aside as a time of personal work and leisure. This stereotypical structure of the work week has led to the coining of phrases reflecting shared states of mind or moods among workers as they traverse the week.
Several countries have adopted a workweek from Monday morning until Friday noon, either due to religious rules (observation of shabbat in Israel) or the growing predominance of a 35-37.5 hour workweek in continental Europe. Several of the Muslim countries have a standard Sunday through Thursday or Saturday through Wednesday workweek leaving Friday for religious observance, and providing breaks for the daily prayer times.
[edit] Day nicknames
Among salaried workers in the western world, the workweek often consists of Monday through Friday or Saturday with the weekend set aside as a time of personal work and leisure. This stereotypical structure of the work week has led to the coining of phrases reflecting shared states of mind or moods among workers as they traverse the week.
'Blue Monday' or 'Mondayitis' or "having a case of the Mondays" is a feeling of weariness and apathy that some workers express when starting the work week on Monday. The latter phrase entered the pop culture lexicon after its use in the 1999 American comedy film Office Space. Saint Monday is the tradition of absenteeism on Mondays.
'Hump day' is a synonym for Wednesday. The idiom is based on the notion that if a worker has made it half-way through the week, struggling uphill from Monday, that the rest of the week is an easier slide toward Friday and the weekend; the end is in sight from the hump, the top of the hill.
"So Horrible It's Thursday" is a phrase whose acronym represents how workers anticipating Friday and the weekend often feel about Thursdays. It is similar to the catchphrase "Thank Goodness It's Friday" but closer in spirit to "Blue Monday" above. The acronym can also represent "Sure Happy It's Thursday" and other variants.
'TGIF' is an acronym meaning "Thank God It's Friday" or more politically correct, "Thank Goodness It's Friday", an expression of relief that the work week is finally over and that even if the weekend is not full of leisure, at least the drudgery of the workplace is temporarily over.
'Pau Hana' (pronounced "pow hana") is a Hawaiian phrase literally meaning, "finished work", but generally refers to the practice of leaving work early on Friday to start the weekend.
POETS day is an acronym meaning "Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday", a term for Fridays, used in industries where it is common practice to finish work early at the end of the week. Variations on this are "Punch Out Early Tomorrow's Saturday" (referring to a manual punch time clock),"Push Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday" and "Push Off Early Tomorrow's Sunday" (based on the old 6 day work week). Used in UK [2] and Australia but appears less popular in the US.
[edit] Differences among countries and recent trends
![Annual work hours (source: OECD (2004), OECD in Figures, OECD, Paris. [1])](../../../../images/local/thumb/5/5a/Yearly_working_time.jpg/400px-Yearly_working_time.jpg)
[edit] South Korea and Japan
By far, workers in South Korea have the longest work hours in the world. The average South Korean works 2,390 hours each year, according to the OECD. This is over 400 hours longer than the next longest-working country and 34% more hours than the average in the United States. A typical workweek in South Korea is 44 hours or longer. Most people start their day at 8am and end at around 7pm or later, often having dinner before returning to work. Until legislation in 2004 that virtually abolished the six-day workweek in large corporations known as "jaebol", South Korea was the only country in the OECD that worked Saturdays.[3]
Work hours in Japan are decreasing, but many Japanese still work long hours. Recently, Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) has issued a draft report recommending major changes to regulations that govern working hours. The centerpiece of the proposal is an exemption from overtime pay for white-collar workers.
South Korea and Japan are the only countries where death by work or "karoshi" (과로사) is a recognized phenomenon.[4]
[edit] Western Europe
In most Western European countries, working time is gradually decreasing. The decrease is inversely related with productivity, though overall, less is produced. The European Union's working time directive imposes a 48 hour maximum working week that applies to every member state except the United Kingdom (which has an opt-out meaning that UK-based employees can work longer than 48 hours if they wish, but they cannot be forced to do so). France has enacted a 35-hour workweek by law, and similar results have been produced in other countries such as Germany through collective bargaining. A major reason for the significantly lower annual hours worked in Europe than in the United States is a greater amount of paid annual leave. Fixed employment comes with four to six weeks of holiday as standard.
[edit] Australia
In Australia, between 1974 and 1997 no marked change took place in the average amount of time spent at work by Australians of "prime working age" (that is, between 25 and 54 years of age). Throughout this period the average time spent at work by prime working-age Australians (including those who did not spend any time at work) remained stable at between 27 and 28 hours per week. This unchanging average, however, masks a significant redistribution of work from men to women. Between 1974 and 1997 the average time spent at work by prime working-age Australian men fell from 45 to 36 hours per week, while the average time spent at work by prime working-age Australian women rose from 12 to 19 hours per week. In the period leading up to 1997, the amount of time Australian workers spent at work outside the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays also increased (Bittman & Rice, 2002).
[edit] United States
NSC-68 and labor force size, participation, and the steady growth of working time in the United States – 1950-2007:
Beginning in 1950, under the Truman Administration, and continuing with all administrations since, the United States became the first known industrialized nation to explicitly (albeit secretly) and permanently forswear a reduction of working time. Given the military-industrial requirements of the Cold War, the authors of the then secret National Security Council Document 68 [4] proposed the US government undertake a massive permanent national economic expansion which would allow it to “siphon off” a part of the economic activity produced to support an ongoing military buildup to contain the Soviet Union:
… the United States could achieve a substantial absolute increase in output and could thereby increase the allocation of resources to a build-up of the economic and military strength of itself and its allies without suffering a decline in its real standard of living … With a high level of economic activity, the United States could soon attain a gross national product of $300 billion per year, as was pointed out in the President's Economic Report (January 1950). Progress in this direction would permit, and might itself be aided by, a buildup of the economic and military strength of the United States and the free world; furthermore, if a dynamic expansion of the economy were achieved, the necessary build-up could be accomplished without a decrease in the national standard of living because the required resources could be obtained by siphoning off a part of the annual increment in the gross national product. These are facts of fundamental importance in considering the courses of action open to the United States (cf. Ch. IX). [5]
This proposal was adopted by President Truman, who, in his 1951 Annual Message to the Congress, stated:
In terms of manpower, our present defense targets will require an increase of nearly one million men and women in the armed forces within a few months, and probably not less than four million more in defense production by the end of the year. This means that an additional 8 percent of our labor force, and possibly much more, will be required by direct defense needs by the end of the year. These manpower needs will call both for increasing our labor force by reducing unemployment and drawing in women and older workers, and for lengthening hours of work in essential industries. These manpower requirements can be met. There will be manpower shortages, but they can be solved. [6]
Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, working time has remained unchanged by subsequent administrations and Congress.
A 2007 C.I.A. estimate of United States labor force participation placed it at approximately 153.1 million individuals. [5] Assuming each individual worked a 1987 average work week of 1949 hours, working time rose from 121 billion man hours per year to 398 billion man hours per year. This represents an actual extension of the working time by 247 percent over the fifty-seven year period. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics states that between 1950 and 2000 the number of individuals in the active labor force grew 227 percent from 62 million to 141 million, and was projected to reach 192 million by 2050.
Working time and female labor force participation – 1950-2000:
Most significant, as President Truman’s 1951 message predicted, female labor force participation rose from 30 percent, in 1950, to 47 percent, by 2000 – growing at a particularly rapid rate from 1970 to 1980. [6]
“In the 1950–60 period, population growth alone was responsible for the growth of the labor force. During the 1960–70 period, population growth contributed about 94 percent of the growth in the labor force. In the 1970–80 period, when the labor force participation of women underwent rapid growth, 76 percent of the labor force growth was the result of population growth, and the rest was related to the growth of participation rates, mainly of women.”[7]
The report continues:
“In 1950, the overall participation rate of women was 34 percent. […] The rate rose to 38 percent in 1960, 43 percent in 1970, 52 percent in 1980, and 58 percent in 1990 and reached 60 percent by 2000. The overall labor force participation rate of women is projected to attain its highest level in 2010, at 62 percent.”[8]
The inclusion of women in the work force is rightly seen as a symbol of social progress, but, since this participation has not been offset by an overall reduction of individual average work time, the net effect, once the vastly improved productivity of the United States labor force is factored in, has been a labor force that is today worked to more extreme lengths than any earlier period in United State history.
The price impact of United States lengthening working time – 1950-2007:
Although it is not yet supported by independent research, one argument states the lengthening of work time in the United States may be implicated in the secular persistence on inflation. Between 1950 and 2007 official price inflation was measured to 861 percent. President Truman, in his 1951 message to Congress predicted correctly that, his military buildup, “will cause intense and mounting inflationary pressures.” Yet, even he did not appear to sense the permanent and long term price implications of a longer working time. The official inflation statistics may actually understate the real impact of the lengthening work week on prices. To give a closer estimate, it is necessary to correct for productivity increase during the same period. Using the data provided by the United State Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erik Rauch has estimated productivity to have increased by nearly 400 percent. Says, Rauch:
“… if productivity means anything at all, a worker should be able to earn the same standard of living as a 1950 worker in only 11 hours per week.”
The increase in productivity since 1950, ideally, should have had the effect of lowering prices of material goods. Given this, a truer measure of inflation during this period might be as much as four times higher than government figures.
In the United States, the working time for upper-income professionals has increased compared to 1965, while total annual working time for low-skill, low-income workers has decreased.[9] This effect is sometimes called the "leisure gap." In 2006, the average man employed full-time worked 8.4 hours per work day, and the average woman employed full-time worked 7.7 hours per work day.[10]
There is no mandatory minimum amount of paid time off for sickness or holiday. However, regular, full-time workers often have the opportunity to take about nine days off for various holidays, two weeks of sick leave and two weeks of paid holiday time, with some workers receiving additional time after several years.[11]
Overtime rules
Many professional workers put in longer hours than the forty-hour standard. In professional industries like investment banking and large law firms, a forty-hour workweek is considered inadequate and may result in job loss or failure to be promoted.[12][13] Medical residents in the United States routinely work long hours as part of their training.
Workweek policies are not uniform in the U.S. Many compensation arrangements are legal, and three of the most common are wage, commission, and salary payment schemes. Wage earners are compensated on a per-hour basis, whereas salaried workers are compensated on a per-week or per-job basis, and commission workers get paid according to how much they produce or sell.
Under most circumstances, wage earners and lower-level employees may be legally required by an employer to work more than forty hours in a week; however, they are paid extra for the additional work. Many salaried workers and commission-paid sales staff are not covered by overtime laws. These are generally called "exempt" positions because they are exempt from the federal and state laws which mandate extra pay for extra time worked.[14] The rules are complex, but generally exempt workers are executives, professionals, or sales staff.[15] For example, school teachers are not paid extra for working extra hours. Business owners and independent contractors are considered self-employed, and none of these laws apply to them.
Generally, workers are paid time-and-a-half, or 1.5 times the worker's base wage, for each hour of work past forty. California also applies this rule to work in excess of eight hours per day.[16]
In some states, firms are required to pay double-time, or twice the base rate, for each hour of work past 60, or each hour of work past 12 in one day in California.[16] This provides an incentive for companies to limit working time, but makes these additional hours more desirable for the worker. It is not uncommon for overtime hours to be accepted voluntarily by wage-earning workers. Unions often treat overtime as a desirable commodity when negotiating how these opportunities shall be partitioned among union members.
[edit] Other countries
The Kapauku of Papua think it is bad luck to work two consecutive days. The !Kung Bushmen work just two-and-a-half days per week, rarely more than six hours per day. [17]
The work week in Samoa is approximately 30 hours[18], and though average annual Samoan cash income is relatively low, by some measures, the Samoan standard of living and quality of life are quite good.
[edit] Trends
[edit] See also
- Paul Lafargue
- Eight-hour day
- Business hours
- Soviet revolutionary calendar
- Waiting for the Weekend
- Workweek
- Labour market flexibility
[edit] References
- ^ Farb, Peter (1968). Man's Rise to Civilization As Shown by the Indians of North America from Primeval Times to the Coming of the Industrial State. New York City: E. P. Dutton, 28. LCC E77.F36. “Most people assume that the members of the Shoshone band worked ceaselessly in an unremitting search for sustenance. Such a dramatic picture might appear confirmed by an erroneous theory almost everyone recalls from schooldays: A high culture emerges only when the people have the leisure to build pyramids or to create art. The fact is that high civilization is hectic, and that primitive hunters and collectors of wild food, like the Shoshone, are among the most leisured people on earth.”
- ^ Cohen, Yehudi (1974). Man in Adaptation: the cultural present. Aldine Transaction, 94-95. ISBN 0202011097. “In all, the adults of the Dobe camp worked about two and a half days a week. Since the average working day was about six hours long, the fact emerges that !Kung Bushmen of Dobe, despite their harsh environment, devote from twelve to nineteen hours a week to getting food. Even the hardest working individual in the camp, a man named =oma who went out hunting on sixteen of the 28 days, spent a maximum of 32 hours a week in the food quest.”
- ^ ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/opt/lpr/histmfgsic.zip
- ^ http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nsc-68/nsc68-2.htm
- ^ (CIA FACTBOOK)
- ^ http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf
- ^ http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf
- ^ http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf]
- ^ An economic mystery: Why do the poor seem to have more free time than the rich? - By Steven E. Landsburg - Slate Magazine. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
- ^ American Time Use Survey Summary
- ^ Table 4. Average paid holidays and days of paid holiday and paid sick leave, full-time employees, 1997. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
- ^ Legal Affairs
- ^ California Bar Journal
- ^ What do the terms exempt and nonexempt mean?. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
- ^ elaws - Fair Labor Standards Act Advisor. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
- ^ a b Overtime in California FAQ. Retrieved on 2008-01-28.
- ^ Robert Levine (1997). A Geography of Time. Basic Books. Retrieved on 2007-11-17.
- ^ Pitt, David (1970). Tradition and economic progress in Samoa: A case study of the role of traditional social institutions in economic development. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198231563. “(...) findings generally agree on an average of about 28-30 hours work per week for an adult male village worker.”
[edit] Further reading
- Deirdre McCann (2005), Working Time Laws: A global perspective, ILO, ISBN 92-2-117323-2
- Madeleine Bunting (2004), Willing Slaves: How the Overwork Culture is Ruling Our Lives, HarperCollins
- John de Graaf (2003), Take Back Your Time, Berrett-Koehler, ISBN 1-57675-245-3
- Eugene J. McCarthy and William McGaughey (1989), "Nonfinancial Economics: The Case for Shorter Hours of Work", Praeger
- William McGaughey (1981), "A Shorter Workweek in the 1980s", Thistlerose
- Heejung Chung, Marcel Kerkhofs and Peter Ester"Working Time Flexibility in European Companies" , European Foundation.
- Colette Fagan, Ariane Hegewisch and Jane Pillinger "Out of Time: why Britain needs a new approach to working time flexibility", TUC
- Ute Klammer, Ton Wilthagen, Heejung Chung, Anke Thiel (2008) "Take it or leave it: flexible working-time arrangements and the synchronization of business cycle and life cycle" (as part of the European Foundation project "Flexibility and Security over the lifecourse")
[edit] External links
- Hours of Work in U.S. History from EH.NET by Robert Whaples
- The Guardian, August 20, 2005, "Work until you drop: how the long-hours culture is killing us" (UK focus)
- Evans, J., D. Lippoldt and P. Marianna(2001), Trends in Working Hours in OECD Countries, OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers n° 45, OECD, Paris. [7]
- Bertrand Russell, In Praise of Idleness
- People for a Shorter Workweek Blog Contains links to shorter worktime groups as well as other important links.
- ShorterWorkWeek.com A collection of writings on the prospect of reducing work hours in the United States
- Explanation of Working Time Limits (48 hour week) in the UK and how the opt-out works
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