Back in 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by 2030, the grandchildren of his generation (which, roughly speaking, is us) would have reached a consumption saturation point and as a consequence they would be able to work far less.
In his essay Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren, the most famous economist of the 20th century forecast that living standards in “progressive countries” (shorthand for Europe and North America) would be between four and eight times higher and that the average working week would be cut to just 15 hours or five three-hour shifts.
Essentially we would be back to preschool hours, 9.15am to 12.15pm, a cheese triangle and grapes for your midmorning snack. Bliss.
Ironically, the only cohort of workers on the planet who have arrived at this work-life nirvana are oil-rich Arabs. The typical working day for those who live off oil revenue in the Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait is said to be about three or four hours.
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However, for most workers, the average working week is much the same as it was in Keynes’s time.
Keynes in hindsight made a number of faulty assumptions about society and human behaviour.
He predicted that production would be become largely robotised, freeing up humans to work less, and that humans, as they got richer and their basic needs were met, would “rationally” choose to work less.
Wrong on both counts. Keynes used the English gentry as his yardstick, Edwardian dandies who held wealth in the form of land, property and financial assets. When the value of these assets rose, they earned more and – observably from Keynes’s perspective – tended to work less.
The modern worker’s attachment to work, however, extends beyond financial compensation, encompassing complex factors such as status, social connection and personal achievement.
Our consumption habits also go way beyond basic needs. The more money people have, the more they want – the luxury car, the latest tech, the Birkin bag. Advances in technology, contrary to predictions, have fed this consumerism.
As I’m writing this article, I have answered the door three times for package deliveries from Amazon.
The US – an economy and culture that has dominated the last 100 years of human history – provides perhaps the most striking refutation of Keynes’s central premise that more wealth leads to more leisure.
Harvard University economist Richard Freeman notes that the US has 30-40 per cent higher GDP per capita than France and Germany but US workers typically work 30 per cent more hours than their European counterparts and take fewer holidays.
“The decision of Keynes’s grandchildren to work so much,” Freeman says, “is associated with a reversal of what had been a historic inverse relation between hours and pay.
“In past decades, the poor have worked more than the rich. They had to work long and hard to feed themselves and their families. Work or perish,” Freeman writes. “The rich, by virtue of their land holdings or hereditary position in society, could be idle if that was their fancy. The phrase ‘idle rich’ had real meaning.
“In the latter half of the 20th century, the inverse relation between hourly pay and hours worked reversed itself, at least in the United States,” he says. “The workaholic rich replaced the idle rich. Those earning higher pay worked more hours than those earning lower pay.”
Of course it’s not just US workaholics who have debunked Keynes’s predictions.
In many instances, a typical 40-hour working week no longer generates enough money for rent, utilities and groceries, hence many workers cannot reduce their hours. Many households nowadays, out of necessity, also operate off two incomes.
Which brings us to the Department of Finance’s recent report on Ireland’s post-pandemic labour market and its finding that workers here are – on average – working two hours fewer a week than before the pandemic.
The trend was partly linked to an increased incidence of remote work.
The finding feeds into the current tug-of-war between workers and bosses over hybrid working and whether it has led to more slacking off and less productivity (the view of some chief executives), or whether it represents a valuable shift in work patterns that makes for happier workers and encourages more people, particularly women, into the workforce.
[ Return-to-office edicts aren’t always what they seemOpens in new window ]
The report indicated, however, that the drop in hours worked occurred in nearly all sectors of the economy – even those that require workers to be on-site – suggesting flexible working patterns were not the “primary driver”.
It was noted the average hours worked in rich European countries tended to fall as the countries got richer.
There is, of course, the possibility that the findings (which were based on self-reporting by employees, which has become less reliable since the pandemic, for reasons we do not yet fully understand) were just statistical noise and that we’re not really working less. Other surveys suggest average working hours haven’t changed.
But if we are working the same number of hours or possibly fewer than our predecessors, why is everyone so frazzled and burnt out?
Maybe the hours-worked-per-person metric obscures the real villains of the piece: hours worked per household, lengthier commute times, hands-on parenting and the “always-on” work culture.
