Back in 2013, Oxford researchers Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne predicted that 47% of jobs would be automated within a decade. Six years down the road and with unemployment across much of the developed world at almost record lows, the conversation has shifted more towards ensuring people have ‘good’ jobs, with concerns raised about the impact of zero hour contracts and the gig economy on our wellbeing.
There are well known psychological advantages of being in work, with boosts to our self-esteem and social inclusion common, but is there a limit to when these benefits are seen? Do we need to be in the kind of ‘good’ jobs that campaigners want people to have, or will any job do?
New research led by the University of Cambridge attempted to answer this question by exploring whether there was a set number of hours after which the benefits of work materialize.
The benefits of work
The researchers explored data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, both on the number of hours people worked, and their mental health and overall satisfaction with life. In total, over 70,000 UK residents were examined between 2009 and 2018, and there was a clear correlation between working and improved mental health.
Indeed, even if people were only working less than 8 hours per week, they were 30% less likely to develop mental health issues. Interestingly, there seemed to be no real boost from working more than 8 hours, with those working a standard 40 hour work week showing no real difference in either their mental health or their life satisfaction levels. As such, the authors believe that we can get all we need from work (in health terms at least) by engaging in just 8 hours of it per week.
“We have effective dosage guides for everything from Vitamin C to hours of sleep in order to help us feel better, but this is the first time the question has been asked of paid work,” the authors say. “We know unemployment is often detrimental to people’s wellbeing, negatively affecting identity, status, time use, and sense of collective purpose. We now have some idea of just how much paid work is needed to get the psychosocial benefits of employment – and it’s not that much at all.”
Too much of a good thing
Alas, in the UK at least, many people are working incredibly long hours, with data suggesting that UK workers are among the hardest workers in Europe, even if this doesn’t really translate into greater productivity. Such statistics have prompted some researchers to propose an optimum working time, from a productivity perspective at least.
Long working hours have been clearly linked with a range of negative health outcomes, from greater risk of heart disease to stress and anxiety, and while there is evidence to suggest that the level of control we have is a key factor in the impact long hours have on our health and wellbeing, there seems an understandable question of whether the kind of workloads we endure today are actually a good thing.
John Maynard Keynes famously said that the future would be one in which we would enjoy ample leisure time, with work being more a matter of choice than necessity, and a reduction in working hours is something the Cambridge researchers actively support.
“In the next few decades we could see artificial intelligence, big data and robotics replace much of the paid work currently done by humans,” they say. “If there is not enough for everybody who wants to work full-time, we will have to rethink current norms. This should include the redistribution of working hours, so everyone can get the mental health benefits of a job, even if that means we all work much shorter weeks.”
A shorter working week
So how could society get by if everyone was working so much fewer hours each week? The researchers suggest a number of policy ideas to help move things along, from five-day weekends to a significant increase in the number and length of annual holidays, such that people effectively have two months of holiday for every month they work.
They unsurprisingly suggest that this huge reduction in working hours would have a profound impact on work-life balance, whilst also improving productivity and reducing the environmental impact of commuting to work.
There are risks of course, not least in the potential for significant income inequality if some sections of society are working more traditional hours and some are working heavily reduced hours. For this reason, they believe that reduced hours would have to be mandated via legislation.
“The traditional model, in which everyone works around 40 hours a week, was never based on how much work was good for people. Our research suggests that micro-jobs provide the same psychological benefits as full-time jobs,” they explain. “However, the quality of work will always be crucial. Jobs where employees are disrespected or subject to insecure or zero-hours contracts do not provide the same benefits to wellbeing, nor are they likely to in the future.”
The concept of the eight hour work day we enjoy today was forged in the 1800s, as campaigners strove to give people equal parts work, rest and recreation. As labor market reforms have come and gone in the meantime, the general length of the working day has stubbornly endured. Perhaps now is finally the time for this staple of working life to also experience the transformational impact of new technologies.
