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One of the labour policies proposed within the fields of post-growth economics and degrowth is working-time reduction (WTR): a reduction in the total amount of paid working time over the life course (Pullinger, 2014). Beyond its contribution for environmental remediation, WTR may contribute to decent working time by offering additional advantages in domains as diverse as employment, health, subjective well-being and gender equality (De Spiegelaere & Piasna, 2017; ILO, 2007; Kallis, Kalush, Flynn, Rossiter, & Ashford, 2013; Pullinger, 2014; Skidelsky & Kay, 2019;). There are many different elements to consider when implementing a WTR policy, such as the quantity (how much of a reduction), reference base (is working time reduced on a daily, weekly or yearly basis), compensation (to what degree is the reduction paid for by employee, employer and/or government), productivity expectation (are employees expected to compensate for the reduced working time by increasing their productivity) and level of implementation (individual, company, sector, regional, country or higher level). The last dimension affects the collectivity of the policy, i.e. whether colleagues, close friends and family participate in a similar WTR policy. Depending on the specific combination of elements, many different types of WTR can be created. Moreover, the specific combination plays a determining role for the set of benefits that will be achievable across diverse domains. While preferences for WTR on an individual level (i.e. part-time work) have been extensively studied in literature on working-time preferences and work hours mismatch, little is known about employees' preferences for collective WTR policies. It is worthwhile to investigate these preferences, considering the multitude of potential benefits associated with WTR as well as the key role of employees in accepting such policies. We aim to come across this need by performing a factorial survey experiment among full-time employees during the first trimester of 2023. In this experiment, employees will be asked to evaluate several types of WTR for two criteria (attractiveness and probability to participate) which differ with respect to four dimensions (quantity, reference base, compensation (wage reduction) and collectivity) while keeping other dimensions constant (e.g. in each vignette, employees are not expected to increase their productivity). The estimated regression models will provide insight into how the preferences for WTR policies causally depend on the different dimensions while controlling for the employees’ individual and current job characteristics. First, we will analyze what dimensions of the policy relatively matter more as well as how these dimensions interact and trade-off with each other. More specifically, while we expect a proportionately higher wage reduction to negatively affect preferences, we hypothesize that this relationship might be moderated by the level of collectivity: when colleagues, close friends and family participate in similar WTR policies, lower feelings of guilt about burdening colleagues together with the social multiplier effect might render the WTR policy more attractive. Second, we will analyze how preferences vary according to employee characteristics. Based on prior literature, we expect that age, gender, life stage, educational level and current working schedule will affect an individual’s preferences for WTR policies. |
