How Many Hours? Work-Time Regimes and Preferences in European Countries

Abstract

The length of the ‘working week’ is now shorter than in earlier historical periods, but there are signs that working time is creeping up again in some parts of the economy. Furthermore, a growing proportion of the employed are living in busy ‘dual-earner’ households, where the combined paid and unpaid workloads of women are heavier than those of men. A number of authors have argued that the time pressures experienced by the employed are increasing as a result, contributing to the more general quickening pace of life in contemporary societies, and captured by notions such as the ‘time bind’ (Hochschild, 1997), ‘overworking’ (Shor, 1991) or ‘harriedness’ (Linder, 1970).