Working on Sunday: Regulations, Impacts and Perceptions of the Time Use Practices

Abstract

During the last decades, most European countries have changed the regulation of Sunday’s opening hours. The trend is clearly an extension of work during Sundays particularly in shops and cultural and leisure activities. But the rising Sunday’s work in these fields call for an extension of working hours in other services: transportation, childcare, cleaning, etc. The issue of Sunday’s work raises a strong debate between supporters and opponents. This contribution first shortly reviews the changes in Sunday’s opening hours in different European countries. It then looks at different controversial sets of arguments and at current time use patterns comparing those working on Sundays and those not. The time use analysis is done in a gender perspective. Indeed, women tend to be more involved in activities that are subject to the debate (retail, cultural activities such as libraries). These data mainly come from surveys and analysis of different sets of data. Finally, the contribution gives some ideas concerning the way to regulate Sunday’s opening hours and the possible impact on time uses and on representation of the Sunday in our culture. One of the results is that Sunday’s regulation should be defined at the local level, in the frame of local time policies.