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Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#161

Post by Loughla »

Benji_San wrote: post #117
guard-of-terra wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always a tough choice between a huge house in sprawlville on one side of spectrum and a tiny apartment in the centre of the (non-urban-flighted, alive and walkable) city. And of course everything in between. You can't say that in "better standard of living", home size matters and home location doesn't. Europeans have less sprawl but smaller houses, that's just it.

It shouldn't really be a tough choice. The "suburbia" dream is flawed on so many levels that it isn't even funny. Yet people are clinging on to it like leeches because they've been told it will make them happy.

That's not really fair. Just because the suburbia dream is flawed for you, doesn't mean it is for everyone else. I really do know folks who love living in a subdivision, being on the community board, watering the lawn in khaki shorts, the whole nine yards. They love all of it.

Different strokes for different folks, Benji. Not everyone wants to live in the city where everything is so tight and expensive. Not everyone wants to live in the country where everything is so god damned far away.

Some want to live relatively close to their work, have large sized yards like you would in rural areas, but still have access to shopping and amenities similar to cities.

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#163

Post by erikb »

vidarh wrote: post #160
erikb wrote: post #91

Germany seems to be unrealistically low in the diagram. It is very untypical for people here to work less than 40 hours per week and lunch hour is not included in the work time (means you actually stay 45 hours at work in a usual contract).

The article points out that Germany is pulled down by a lot of people working part-time jobs.

Yeah but these shouldn't be considered in such kind of statistics, right? Doesn't make sense to compare part-time workers and full-time workers when a country wants to limit their numbers of full-time hours.

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#164

Post by ajuc »

jacquesm wrote: post #62
blencdr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that a small businesses can afford to make shifts (or 4 days week) if the company must be reachable by a client.

It won't make any difference from the employers perspective other than that they'll have to do a better job of sharing the knowledge required to do the work across more employees. This is a good thing anyway. The number of fte's remains the same. The number of people fulfilling those fte's goes up but payroll will remain roughly unaffected.

> The number of people fulfilling those fte's goes up but payroll will remain roughly unaffected.

That's only assuming there are no constant(independent of how long he work) costs to employ someone. In many countries it's not true.

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#165

Post by id »

klunger wrote: post #84
furyg3 wrote: post #56

I moved from the US (high on the list) to the Netherlands (bottom of the list) a while ago. Different jobs and sectors vary, but the theme I can confirm is that the Dutch feel more productive, generally (I work in software development). In very broad terms, the Dutch are more likely to plan and stick to those plans. Personal time and time off are valued, so you need to be efficient in your working hours. You can't re…

I've had the same experience in Norway. Maybe it is a Northern European thing? Edited: Scandinavian -> Norther Europe

It is a European thing actually. Sometimes it seems labor rights are perceived as socialism by Americans.

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#166

Post by gyardley »

I wonder how much the length of the work week is related to cultural belief in upward mobility, either for yourself or for your children.

When I was a kid, my own family - mostly blue-collar, unionized workers - would've only supported a reduction in the work week if that meant they could start getting overtime sooner. They didn't have to, because they were unionized, but they worked as much as they could. They'd happily work holidays like Christmas because it meant they got triple-time. If you gave them a six-hour day at the same rate of pay, they'd celebrate - and then go looking for a part-time job. They did this because they wanted a better life for themselves and their children - not too many six-year-old working class kids had a TRS-80 in their bedroom, but I did.

If they didn't believe a better life for themselves or their children was particularly possible, perhaps they would've wanted to work less - but that cultural trait was such a big part of their lives, they would've been entirely different people without it. I have a hard time even picturing it.

Because of this, when I read articles like the one linked, they seem so strange - I'm not judging, not at all, but it really highlights how different cultures are wired completely differently.

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#167

Post by bjourne »

showsover wrote: post #2

This stood out to me: >The Swedish town of Kiruna actually gave up its six-hour working days in 2005 after finding that the increased intensity of work was not a positive. "People have seen there that the intensity of the job increases significantly, with negative effects on health as a consequence," Could that be because we are used to fit our work in 8 hours and work accordingly? Doing 100% of your work in 75% of t…

That's because they did it wrong. The idea is that you should only work for 6 hours/day, with the same pay you had before, at the same pace. The 25% lost productivity would be compensated for by hiring from Swedens 10-15% pool of unemployed and underemployed people.

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#168

Post by mtrimpe »

digitalengineer wrote: post #143
chrisgd wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how to change that feeling though (short of moving out of the US). I believe I could work 6-8 hrs / day and no one would care but I can't stop feeling guilty at home

Let me guess... You were raised Christian? Protestant perhaps? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic (EDIT: It's about the feeling of guild, people. It's embedded inside the Protestant Culture, alongside with working hard. As mentioned in Wikipedia link)

Sheesh; why the downvotes? It's a very appropriate comment as the 'Protestant work ethic' is the canonical name for, and most likely significant source of, the exact feeling the GP described.

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#169

Post by obeleh »

comrade1 wrote: post #72
furyg3 wrote: post #56

I moved from the US (high on the list) to the Netherlands (bottom of the list) a while ago. Different jobs and sectors vary, but the theme I can confirm is that the Dutch feel more productive, generally (I work in software development). In very broad terms, the Dutch are more likely to plan and stick to those plans. Personal time and time off are valued, so you need to be efficient in your working hours. You can't re…

I have the same experience in Switzerland. I moved from the u.s. (s.f., boston, dc, socal) and despite working less we get a lot more done than in the u.s. We have an 8.5 hour workday in Switzerland which we strictly stick to - we get comp time if you work over. In the u.s. we were pretty regularly working 10 hour days and 12 wasn't unusual, but we were wasting so much time. A good example is meetings - most people g…

Could you elaborate what "the American way" is?

Re: Sweden’s proposed six-hour workday

#170

Post by arjie »

gyardley wrote: post #166

I wonder how much the length of the work week is related to cultural belief in upward mobility, either for yourself or for your children. When I was a kid, my own family - mostly blue-collar, unionized workers - would've only supported a reduction in the work week if that meant they could start getting overtime sooner. They didn't have to, because they were unionized, but they worked as much as they could. They'd hap…

Father-son income elasticity is higher in the US than in most of Europe. This means that the income of the son more strongly follows the income of the father.

The difference you speak of may be due to the fact that making lots of money more strongly determines whether your son will too.

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