Working Time Around The World

First Published in 2007. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

John Maynard Keynes once made the bold prediction that the three-hour work day would prevail for his grandchildren's generation. Seventy years later, the question of working time is as pertinent as it was at the inception of the 40-hour week. Not until now, however, has there been a global comparative analysis of working time laws, policies and actual working hours. Despite a century-long optimism about reduced working hours and some progress in legal measures limiting working hours, this book demonstrates that differences in actual working hours between industrialized and developing countries remain considerable - without any clear sign of hours being reduced. This study aims to offer some suggestions about how this gap can begin to be closed. Lee, McCann and Messenger trace the theoretical background of the concept of working time before examining recent trends in working time laws in developing countries and countries in transition. The study then shifts its focus to developments in selected countries, considering both broad trends in working time at a national level and the structure and dynamics underlying these trends. The authors provide a remarkable set of policy suggestions that preserve health and safety, are 'family-friendly', promote gender equality, enhance productivity and facilitate workers' choice and influence over their working hours. This book will be of great interest to policy makers engaged with working conditions or health and safety, labour market experts, trade union leaders and workers' organizations, as well as academics and researchers in the fields of industrial relations, labour economics and labour law.

Ronald Burke has put together a collection of state-of-the-art research and writing about work hours and work addiction from around the world. This book is essential reading for academics, managers, human resource professionals and anyone else interested in identifying types of work addiction, learning about antecedents and consequences of workaholism, as well as how to help people achieve work life balance. The contributions from top notch researchers and academics in the field provide a rounded view of how the interplay between career aspirations, work motivation and working conditions contribute to health outcomes and effectiveness at work. Astrid M. Richardsen, Norwegian School of Management, Norway The Research Companion to Working Time and Work Addiction captures the essence and intricacies of an important and fascinating topic. It explores the body of writing on work-hours that until this book existed quite separately from literature on work addiction. As can be expected from the breadth of his knowledge and the consistent quality of his work, Ronald J. Burke has done a terrific job of editing a book that presents work addiction and working time in a way that is both scientifically sound and engaging. The twenty four contributors have done an excellent job of extending and refining our understanding of work addiction and working time in this collection of excellent conceptual and empirical chapters. This book is a must for all scholars and practitioners who are interested in this fascinating aspect of work life. Ayala Malach-Pines, Ben-Gurion University, Israel This is an excellent and unique book which not only addresses the detrimental effects of long working hours and work addiction, but also investigates the causes and treatment of workaholism. An outstanding volume which includes both conceptual and empirical chapters from distinguished academics and practitioners from several countries. This is essential reading for all those interested in health and well-being in the workplace and the establishment of satisfactory home and work life balances. The editor should be congratulated for this groundbreaking book. Marilyn J. Davidson, University of Manchester, UK This book is overdue. Someone, somewhere, a long time ago, should have put this book together, because its value is incalculable. The pace of change in the workplace has vastly increased, and workers see their jobs as more complex and fragmented. What is the prognosis? Where is it all going? What can be done about it? If anything? This book is more a handbook than a research companion, on all those aspects of the workplace that touch on or represent change, pace, workload, work addiction, work life balance, job satisfaction, job involvement, stress, conflict, values, Type A behaviour and other personality disorders. What s more, it delves into some of the more unknown elements of these aspects of work, in different countries. Read it. You ll not be disappointed. Janice Langan-Fox, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia This is a timely and needed book for all professionals who have concerns about issues related to quality of life and well-being. This book is an original piece prepared by a team of international experts, written in an informative and scholarly manner, and presents in an effective form the accumulated wealth of knowledge on the theme. This is a solid book that can satisfy both the academic readership and the professional community. I truly and sincerely recommend it. It is a must for people who are interested in this subject. Simon Dolan, ESADE Business School, Spain This Research Companion examines the effects of work hours on individual and family well-being and questions why people work hard and whether some can work too hard. It integrates contributions from two areas of research work hours and work addiction that have historically been pursued separately. Ronald Burke argues that while work hours have decreas

Working time is a crucial issue for both research and public policy. This book presents the first comprehensive analysis of both paid and unpaid work time, integrating a unique discussion of overwork, underwork, shortening of the working week, and flexible work practices. Time at work is affected by a complex web of evolving culture and social relations, as well as market, technological, and macroeconomic forces, and institutions such as collective bargaining and government policy. Using a variety of new data sources, the authors review the latest trends on working time in numerous countries.

Including international comparative analysis alongside national case studies, this volume offers a wealth of information on the new trends which have emerged over the past decades - all of which were discussed at the recent 9th International Symposium on Working Time, Paris (2004). It looks at the increasing use of results-based employment relationships for managers and professionals, and the increasing fragmentation of time to more closely tailor staffing needs to customer requirements (e.g., short-hours, part-time work). Moreover, as operating/opening hours rapidly expand toward a 24-hour and 7-day economy, the book considers how this has resulted in a growing diversification, decentralization, and individualization of working hours, as well as an increasing tension between enterprises' business requirements and workers' needs and preferences regarding their hours. This new reality has raised some other challenging issues as well and the volume addresses those such as increasing employment insecurity and instability, time-related social inequalities, particularly in relation to gender, workers' ability to balance their paid work with their personal lives, and even the synchronization of working hours with social times, such as community activities.

An innovative view of how everyone doing part-time work and part-time caregiving would promote flourishing families, free time, equality, and the true value of care. The way that Western countries approach work and care for others is fundamentally dysfunctional. The amount of time spent at work places unsustainable stress on families, particularly in the face of rising inequality, while those who perform care are underpaid and their labor undervalued. In Part-Time for All, Jennifer Nedelsky and Tom Malleson propose a plan to radically restructure both work and care. As such, they offer a solution to four pressing problems: the inequality of caregivers; family stress from competing demands of work and care; chronic time scarcity; and policymakers who are ignorant about the care that life requires--the care/policy divide. Nedelsky and Malleson argue that no capable adult should do paid work for more than 30 hours per week, so that they can contribute substantial amounts of time to unpaid care for family, friends, or other "communities of care." While the authors focus primarily on human-to-human care, they also include care for the earth as a vital part of this shift. All of the elements of Nedelsky and Malleson's proposal already exist piecemeal in various countries. What is needed is to integrate the key reforms and scale them up. The result is an actionable plan to motivate widespread take-up of part-time work and part-time care. Highlighting how these new norms can create synergies of institutional transformation while fostering a cultural shift in the value of care and work, this "care manifesto" identifies the deep changes that are needed and lays out a feasible path forward.

This groundbreaking book examines the growing phenomenon of internships and the policy issues they raise, during a time when internships or traineeships have become an important way of transitioning from education into paid work.