Week 9: Working Less: on Work and Work-Life Balance

All over the industrial world, recruitment managers report that younger applicants have started asking
questions that would have been unthinkable ten or fifteen years ago: Can I leave the office at a
reasonable hour in the evening? Is it possible to trade income for more vacation time? Will I have control
over my working hours? In interview after interview, the message is coming through loud and clear: we
want to work, but we want to have a life, too. (Honor, 2015)

When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the
remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours' work a day should
entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be
his to use as he might see fit. (Russell, 1932)

I cannot doubt the truth of that oracular remark of the greatest of poets: It is a small part of life we
really live. Indeed, all the rest is not life but merely time. (Seneca de Younger, original 49 AD)

Preparation and readings

This week we will explore proposals to reduce the extensive claim of work on our time. The idea that it is
desirable and good to limit the hours spent in gainful employment has recently found new traction, but
is really quite old at root. It is connected to the fundamental question how to live well, both as an
individual and as a collective. What are the perils of long working hours? What would change if we could
all take more leisure time? What is important about time off? What stops us from working less?

Core reading:

Honor, Carl (2015). Work: The benefits of working less hard, Chapter 8 of In Praise of Slow: How a
Worldwide Movement is Challenging the Cult of Speed. London: Orion, pp. 187-215 (29 pages)

Very easy to read, this chapter visits many examples and considerations relating to working less hard.
Also read the following short newspaper articles:

Peters, Adele (2015), Why Sweden is shifting to a 6-hour workday, Fast Company online:
https://www.fastcoexist.com/3051448/why-sweden-is-shifting-to-a-6-hour-work-day
Lim Yan Liang (2014), Parliament: Flexi-work schemes better way to boost work-life balance, says
Chuan-Jin, The Straits Times 8 October 2014. Online:
http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/parliament-flexi-work-schemes-better-way-to-boost-work-
life-balance-says-chuan-jin
Ong, Cheryl (2014), Don't get overly obsessed with work-life balance, The Straits Times 18 August
2014. Online: http://www.straitstimes.com/business/invest/dont-get-overly-obsessed-with-work-
life-balance-0
Supplementary reading:

Two classics that are both worth a read:

Russell, Bertrand (1932), In Praise of Idleness. Available online:

https://libcom.org/files/Bertrand%20Russell%20-%20In%20Praise%20of%20Idleness.pdf

In this essay the British philosopher, mathematician, logician, historian, writer, social critic and
political activist Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), reflects on work and leisure, combining a
sociological, historical, economical and philosophical approach. He argues that there is no need
to work so hard and so much, and that a reduction of working time to four hours per day will
not only reduce the rate of unemployment but also increase leisure time and thus happiness.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus (2005 [or. 49 AD]), On the Shortness of Life. Penguin Books.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC AD 65) was one of the best-known philosophers of ancient
Rome. In this essay, addressed to his friend Paulinus, he reflects on how people waste much
time doing meaningless things, including chasing after wealth, status and being of use to society
through what we would now define as work. The answer is to spend more time at leisure,
which for Seneca means studying philosophy!