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U.S. workweeks are long compared to workweeks in other rich countries. Much less well-known is that Americans are more likely to work at night and on weekends. The authors examine the relationship between these two phenomena using the American Time Use Survey and time-diary data from France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Only small portions of the U.S.–European differences are attributable to observable characteristics. Adjusting for demographic and occupational differences, Americans’ incidence of night and weekend work would drop by no more than 10% if the average European workweek prevailed. Even if no Americans worked long hours, the incidence of unusual work times in the United States would far exceed those in continental Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effect of working-time flexibility and autonomy on time adequacy, using the 2010 European Working Conditions Survey. It addresses gender differences and institutional contexts in the UK, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, and reveals that time arrangements have gendered meanings. While working-time flexibility and autonomy are positively related to time adequacy for women, for men they tend to imply overtime and work intensification. Furthermore, working-time regimes also shape time arrangements. In the UK, employees have time adequacy primarily when they work fixed hours, while in the Netherlands, employees profit most from working-time autonomy. Moreover, unlike in Germany and the UK, men and women in the Netherlands and Sweden benefit more equally from working-time flexibility and autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the increase in the annual hours worked per employee in the U.S. over the last thirty years. During the same period, work hours decreased in many European nations. Women employees' annual paid hours are still much less than men's annual paid hours. Paid hours for all employees fell during the recession.

Résumé. En Grande-Bretagne au XIXe siècle, les premières réglementations sur le temps de travail étaient motivées par des préoccupations humanitaires concernant les femmes et les enfants travaillant dans les usines. Aux Etats-Unis, les lois sur le temps de travail ont initialement été introduites en réponse aux revendications syndicales et aux conflits sociaux. Durant le XXe siècle, les décideurs politiques ont adopté des lois réduisant le nombre d'heures de travail afin de répartir le travail disponible et résorber ainsi le chômage. Avec l'adoption de la Directive européenne sur le temps de travail, les vingt années écoulées ont reflété un mouvement vers l'intégration sociale et politique, les pressions politiques continues dans la lutte contre le chômage, et l'acceptation croissante de l'ergonomie et des méthodes d'organisation du travail comme composantes de la réglementation internationale sur la sécurité. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the connection of labour hours towards work-life balance and workplace inequality in Europe. Since the European Union imposed a goal of reaching a workforce involvement rate of 75 percent by 2020, which emphasize the need of efficient working time schedules and work-life balance rules to expand labour participation. The study revealed that European workers with low-level, low-paying jobs need more working time flexibility and work-life balance provisions.

The article discusses the feasibility of developing social and fiscal policies that recognize, support and compensate unpaid family care work and household work. Statistical data provided by recent time budget studies challenge the assumption that working women, especially mothers, experience the double burden of paid and unpaid labor with a disproportionate share of childcare, eldercare and household work. Time budget studies show that women and men across Europe perform the same number of total productive work hours. An evidence-based framework is provided by preference theory for reviewing existing policies and developing new policies that are gender-neutral and neutral between several lifestyle choices that recognize and reward unpaid family work.

This article examines why hours worked in the United States have risen for the last thirty years. This increase has been contrasted by Prescott and Blanchard to the European experience of falling hours worked. Four basic explanations of this divergence are combined in a reduced form model of hours worked in the United States from 1965 to 2001. The explanation that seems to fit the data best is that rising health care costs in the United States is a key explanation. Other explanations for the increase in United States average hours worked per week include a decline in marginal tax rates, a rise in income inequality coupled with a decline in real wage rates, and productivity growth. A reduced form model is estimated using four explanatory variables representing each of these four themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legislation launched with the EWTD was born as a “Protection of the clinical personnel against overwork for the benefit of Patients” (consumer protection and safety). It appeared that this legislation is in direct and severe conflict with former EU legislation to train competent surgical specialists. First experiences with the EWTD show far reaching and serious consequences on the training of surgical specialists as well as on medical care. There will be a reduction of about 30–35% of clinical and operative experience acquired during the usual 6 yrs of training, with many other negative aspects (see p. 7). All measures proposed so far to overcome the ensuing problems are unworkable. The training of competent surgical specialists as required by the Directive 93/16 EEC is no longer possible and serious problems with safe patient care will occur in the short term, if no political actions are taken. The surgical specialties, represented in the UEMS, provide a proposal for a working hour model consisting of 48 hrs working time (incl. service duties) plus additional 12 hrs reserved and protected for teaching and training. This model would adhere to the EWTD on the one hand, yet maintain the desired standard of training. This proposed exemption from the EWTD would be limited to the time of specialist training. We ask the responsible politicians to find a solution rapidly to prevent serious negative consequences. This motion is supported by the surgical specialties (neurosurgery, general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, paediatric surgery, cardio-thoracic surgery, vascular surgery, oto-rhino-laryngology, list not complete) of the member states of the EU, representing more than 80,000 surgical specialists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outlines the amendments made by the European Commission to the working time directive in Europe. Definitions of working time, on-call time and inactive part of on-call time; Provision of the directive on the daily rest periods and weekly working time of employees; Regulation on employee overtime.

This article examines the differences in work and leisure between the United States and Western Europe. While hours worked per person were about the same between in the United States and Western Europe in the 1970s, today they are almost fifty percent less in Europe than in the U.S. Academics and policymakers have begun to focus on Europe's decline of work hours. Policymakers want to know if the decline has led to a slowdown in growth. The article looks to explore the evolution of working hours while it looks at Edward Prescott's work on labor differences between the U.S. and Europe and examines two different hypotheses for the mismatch between macro and micro labor supply estimates.

Controversy abounds the Working Time Directive seven years since its implementation as the European Commission seeks to unpick the compromise that led to the notorious individual opt-out from maximum weekly working time. This article explores the roots of that controversy in the context of the Court of Justice’s expansive interpretation of the concept of‘working time’. To what extent is it possible to maintain a health and safety guarantee but allow for more flexibility in the organisation of working time for individual workers in an increasingly heterogeneous working environment? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on the legality of the introduction of the 35 hour working week in Europe with the exception of France as of 2003. Difference of the legal weekly working time from the maximum weekly working time; Manner in which working time is fixed in all countries; Impetus given to a reduction in working hours in the early 1990s.

This paper combines two documents on employment flexibility and security prepared in the context of the research project Social Quality and the Policy Domain of Employment, undertaken by the European Foundation on Social Quality. The first document relates to work time in Europe, its social distribution and its evolution. The second document integrated in this paper starts from the fundamental point that, out of the sphere of work, the main time-constraining parameter in the quality of life of people is care. Indeed, availability of time and opportunities for organizing one's time for looking after a relative like children, a spouse, an elderly parent or any other related person, is one of the main elements that make work possible. When it comes to raising the adaptability and flexibility of economic performance, arrangements around employee working times are an issue in many European countries. New competitive demands mean that industrial and service companies are forced to enhance labor efficiency and organize the labor process to ensure just-in-time production and distribution, or non-stop production. This creates pressure to extend hours beyond the standard working day, by introducing or increasing different forms of irregular and flexible work arrangements, such as call-up work, overtime, evening or night work, shift work and weekend work.

In Europe as in the world, national economies are following divergent trajectories in their way out of the crisis of Fordism. Some rely on 'negotiated involvement of workers', others on the flexibility of the wage contract. This creates a centre-periphery type hierarchy between countries. Unfortunately the Maastricht treaty implies rules of the game which induce countries to shift towards the 'flexibility' solution. The text advocates some reforms that could induce a socially preferable general evolution, notably towards shorter labour-time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines the European Working Time Directive which mandates a 48 hour work week. The battle between the supporters of the opt-out from its provisions, led by the UK, and opponents to such a move, led by the French, has resulted in a stalemate. National governments are having to take into account rulings from the European Court of Justice which hold that on-call duty by a doctor, when it physically requires a hospital presence, must be considered as working time. The conditions apply to hospital workers, emergency personnel and residential establishments, including schools. Currently 21 countries do not comply with the provisions and it seems unlikely that the European Commission can start court action against all of them.

The article discusses the appeal of European economists, sociologists, journalists and activists to implement economic and political policies. It is believed that the policies will strengthen the democracy and mend social problems essential in the achievement of plural economies and sustainable development. They call to determine the work hours based on income as well as proliferation between salaried and subsidized workforce. It suggests public financing initiatives that encourage high degree of social utility to promote the third economic sector. It is expressed that the workers should be allowed to receive minimum wage and other income sources.

Reports on the so-called "opt-out" to the Working Time Directive, which was ended by members of the European Parliament in a vote of 378 to 262. Directive allowing employees to waive their rights and to work more than 48 hours a week; Issues considered including the conditions for the application of the opt-out; Argument that opt-out runs counter to the goals of worker health and safety.

Reports on the affect of the European Working Time Directive on countries in Europe as of August 2004. Statement that junior hospital doctors were supposed to start a shorter workweek in an attempt to improve their working lives and their patients' safety; Lack of compliance with the directive in Great Britain; Shortage of staff in Austrian hospitals; Report that the head of the Doctors' Union in the Czech Republic, Milan Kubek, is preparing legal action against the health and labor ministries due to a lack of compliance with the directive; Statement that the shortage of doctors in Portugal force doctors to work overtime shifts; Hours of labor in France, Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands.

Reports that accident and emergency (A&E) units across Great Britain are preparing for the reduction in junior doctors' work hours in line with the European working time directive. Challenge posed by the directive to A&E units; Adjustments made by Frimley Park Hospital National Health Service Trust on its personnel; Comments from John Hutton, health minister.