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) 9 / 13 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.