Reducing work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: UK employees' preferences for working-time reduction and the factors affecting them

Background and rationale: An equitable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in response to global
climate change requires significant change in citizen's lives, particularly more affluent individuals in the
Global North. A change recommended as fulfilling simultaneously environmental and social policy
objectives is a working-time reduction (Gough, 2013). Environmentally, shorter working hours are likely
to reduce consumption among those with greatest responsibility for emissions (Buchs et al, 2011;
Druckman et al, 2012). Socially, working-time reduction can ease unemployment through job sharing
(Jackson and Victor, 2011), and has been strongly associated with improved mental health (Buhl and
Acosta, 2016).
However, there are doubts about feasibility. Ecologically-aware citizens are sympathetic (Iosifidi, 2016)
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but constitute only a small minority. More promising to generate broader interest are employee concerns
about overemployment ie preferences among national working populations for fewer hours (Simic, 2002).
Research on these preferences is mainly quantitative, unable to explore underlying motivations:
preferences are interpreted at face value rather than explored in relation to broader socio-economic and
institutional factors related to national working-time regimes (eg workplace regulation, practices relating
to full/part time work and anti-social hours) (Fagan, 2001). Qualitative work has focused mainly on
debates about women's preferences (Hakim, 1995) or individuals with particular work challenges
(Balderson et al, 2020).
This project thus seeks to develop a more structurally-informed understanding of the working time
preferences of affluent employees in the UK (ie those earning above the average wage) as a means to
establish working-time reduction's potential in mitigating climate change. Its research questions are as
follows: To what extent are more affluent employees in the UK prepared to sacrifice income in return for
greater leisure time? Which groups (by income, gender, occupation etc.) are more prepared to do so and
which less? What are the main obstacles preventing individuals from developing a working-time
reduction preference, or acting on their preference if they do? How do these relate to the UK's workingtime
regime? How do gender considerations affect these dynamics?
A mixed methods approach will be adopted to answer these questions. First, use will be made of UK's
Quarterly Labour Force Survey, a large household sample survey which includes questions on working
times, actual and preferred. From this micro-data, workers on or above average wages will be selected
and split between those who indicate overemployment (ie their actual working hours are greater than
preferred) and those who do not. Using a dichotomous dependent variable (overemployed/other
employees), a binary logit regression will be conducted using explanatory variables comprising sociodemographic
factors, household and family characteristics, employment conditions, occupation and
income. The qualitative part of the study will follow the completion of the quantitative part and be
designed to explore in depth underlying motivations as indicated by the regression. It will focus on the
experience of employees of two UK companies which have voluntarily during recent years reduced
working hours to increase productivity. Their employees' experiences can provide particular insight on
the practical operation of working-time reduction and thus its broader potential.