A shorter working week for everyone?

Opinion is divided on how likely this is, and what governments might do about it, but there is consensus on the need to understand the problem better and have some contingency plans in place.

High levels of long-term unemployment would lead to poverty and inequality, and to a decline in mental and physical health. It would also increase government welfare and health spending. A rapid and permanent rise in unemployment could therefore have devastating effects on public services, communities and individuals.

Working hours and mental health

One option for tackling the problem is a shorter working week for everyone – but the debate is happening when some people are working long hours and others shorter hours. Previous studies suggest that working long hours has negative consequences for health, wellbeing, leisure and families – but also that working fewer hours than one would like has a negative effect on mental health. Earlier research has established that paid work brings mental health and wellbeing benefits, but not how much or how little paid work is needed to gain these benefits.

Our work with Senhu Wang and Adam Coutts used Understanding Society data to establish:

a minimum amount of paid employment needed to deliver some or all of the wellbeing and mental health benefits that employment has been shown to bring
the optimum number of working hours at which the mental health of workers is at its highest.

Our findings

The findings show that working just eight hours a week is enough to get the psychological benefits associated with employment. There were some variations according to gender, such as a dip in satisfaction for men at the point where they start working 16 hours a week, but not for women. This may be because women are still more likely to care for children, and people on Income Support lose benefits if they work more than 16 hours a week – but if they have children, they gain access to other benefits. Also, for those on a low wage, especially men, working 16-20 hours a week can be problematic, because the wages earned are less than the benefits they previously received. Overall, however, the significant difference in mental health and wellbeing is between those with paid work and those with none.

We also found that there is no optimum number of working hours for wellbeing and mental health. There was no evidence to suggest that – when hourly pay, type of work and whether the contract was permanent were taken into account – the standard 36-40 hour working week is best. The results suggest that working full-time is better for mental health than working under 16 hours a week for men and over 40-44 hours a week for women (possibly because of the difficulties of combining longer working hours with childcare). However, full-time work was not significantly different from any other working hours category in terms of mental health and wellbeing.

Universal basic income?

One of the most talked-about policy options for addressing a potential rise in unemployment levels is universal basic income, but if the average effective dose of employment for mental health and wellbeing is only about the equivalent of one day per week, a more radical alternative could be to redistribute working hours.

In this scenario, work is distributed to everybody who wants it, thus also spreading the wellbeing benefits of working. This would reduce unemployment and the associated public health costs, and could also increase productivity, reduce CO2 emissions from commuting, production and consumption, and improve work-life balance. It may be possible to achieve this by reducing the length of the working day, or the ‘normal’ working week, or by increasing annual holidays.

Looking ahead

It’s important to note, though, the we considered population-averaged effects of working hours on mental wellbeing, and looked at relatively short-term effects of changes in working hours. More work is needed on different groups, such as those in insecure or poor-quality jobs, and on the longer term impact on wellbeing and mental health.

This blog was originally published in Insights, our annual summary of policy-relevant research