Can we go back to fewer working hours?

Is the system currently working like it is because of high house prices?
So now it takes 1 and 1/2 wages to pay the mortgage, whereas it used to take only 1, or less?
[my figures may be a little out, but you get my drift].

And firms on the whole are making less money, so want less workers, but those in work have to work harder?

Do you remember when we were told we would all be working a three days week as technology would be doing all the work. What was underestimated massively was how much technology would make possible therefore creating even more work which was able to be done at any hour of the day or night all over the world. the problem is with employing greater numbers of people rather than making the ones you have work harder are the on-costs e.g. NI, Pension and other employee benefits and costs like office equipment, protective clothing rise enormously so for an employer the sums don't add up - greater productivity with fewer staff is the name of the game. Not saying its right its just business economics.

Yes, I remember being told that we needed to be educated for leisure because the working week would be so short.

Oh yes I remember being told that. Wouldn't it be just Loverly. Now lots of us are working under the soft threat of "some one else will do it for less" if you don't working longer, harder for less.

Wasn't it in Small is Beautiful, a book by Schumacher, a study of economics as if people mattered?
The Schumacher Institute is still going. It now runs Practical Action, I think.

Great idea Penstemmon

All the people in our family seem to be working very long hours.
That's apart from two young men, both struggling to find work. It does seem dotty, we have so many unemployed young people, yet we oldies are expected to work to 67.

I listened to a report on the radio I think it was talking about the level of stress and the amount of hours lost in a given year.

I was off 8 weeks as a result of a complete breakdown at work - I apparently didn't know where I was or who everyone I worked with were. This was a result of the way I was handled by my managers when a temporary change of job was decided giving me a days notice, with the added decision that my existing job would not be covered, but that I was expected to keep it ticking over. I worked like a beaver to get everything up to date etc working longer hours, and simply "shut down" when my manager complained that I had missed the 10 day deadline on 2 letters.

I can not see anything improving at the moment.

I agree Penstemmon. Some people are working a ridiculous number of hours while others are working no hours at all.

If work were to be shared more equally, parents would have more time with their children and less childcare costs. Everybody, including children, would be less stressed and people would have time to cook proper food and take more exercise.

The decrease in stress would mean adults and children would be less prone to physical and mental illness and I believe fewer relationships would break up. These and other factors would surely save a lot of money - in healthcare costs, in housing costs, in costs arising from anti-social behaviour, etc.

Many people will say it's not possible, but not that long ago people were commonly working 6 1/2 days a week and the country didn't fall apart when the concept of a 6 day week, and then a "weekend", was introduced.