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The Case for a 25-Hour Work Week (This Is Not a Joke)
Inc. ^ | Feb. 4, 2013 | Laura Entis

Posted on 02/05/2013 4:00:57 PM PST by Professional Engineer

The 40-hour work week is an outdated model, according to Science Nordic's James W Vaupel, head of the new Danish Max Planck research center. Instead, he argues, we should only work 25 hours a week--but keep working until we’re octogenarians.

“We’re getting older and older here in Denmark. Kids who are ten years old today should be able to work until the age of 80. In return, they won’t need to work more than 25 hours per week when they become adults,” Vaupel told Science Nordic. “In the 20th century we had a redistribution of wealth. I believe that in this century, the great distribution will be in terms of working hours."

Vaupel is adamant that, in socio-economic terms, the important standard is the aggregate amount of work people do in their lifetimes, not at what point in their lives they do it.

Spreading out working hours over the full course of a person’s life, Vaupel argues, is both psychologically and physically beneficial at all stages of life.

A 25-hour work week will allow younger people to spend more time with their children, take better care of their health (which will help raise average life expectancy), and improve their over-all quality of life, while for the older population -- many of whom have more time on their hands than they know what to do with -- work can serve as both a psychological and physical outlet.

”There is strong evidence that elderly people who work part-time are healthier than those who don’t work at all and just sit at home,” Vaupel told Science Nordic.

Whatever you may think of this theory, there are certainly many who think (including Sheryl Sandberg) the status quo (the 40/50 hour work week) is not only detrimental to one's health, but actually not that productive.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: redistribution; retirement; shortworkweek; work; workhours; workweek
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Good grief, now we have proposed redistribution of work hours.

Why not come out and just say, "we're too bloody lazy to contribute to society."

1 posted on 02/05/2013 4:01:05 PM PST by Professional Engineer
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To: Professional Engineer

“We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.”


2 posted on 02/05/2013 4:02:23 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: Professional Engineer

At least none of us will have Obamacare.


3 posted on 02/05/2013 4:03:22 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Professional Engineer

Oh, sheesh....the younger you are, the more hours you should work. I would like to see high school ended around age 14/15...and then work or advanced education. People should work the most during their most productive years.....especially from 15 - 50. I worked many a 60 hour work week in my 30’s and 40’s. Won’t kill ya! Will make you stronger, or at least help you prioritize better!


4 posted on 02/05/2013 4:05:38 PM PST by goodnesswins (R.I.P. Doherty, Smith, Stevens, Woods.)
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To: Professional Engineer

How about everyone go onto 30 hour weeks- 3, 10-hour days.

You would not get paid a lot but hey! I would shovel ditches if I could have 4 days a week off every single week.

One half the poplulation works the first 3 days, the other half the next three days, and we all have Sunday off to THANK GOD FOR ENDLESS 4 DAY WEEKENDS!!!

I would love to go to 4, 10-hour days already- i have too much I want to do at home with jy children. With all that extra time I could plant a garden to make up for the food money i would lose... get my garage cleaned and KEEP IT CLEAN! go swimming and stay healthy - not spend every weekend beat-down and dragging for some more energy to start another week...

WOO HOO!


5 posted on 02/05/2013 4:06:52 PM PST by Mr. K (There are lies, damned lies, statistics, and democrat talking points.)
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To: Professional Engineer

I think it makes sense. When you think of government workers I’m sure a lot of them (not all mind you) could complete their primary tasks in 25 hours per week. That’d be a nice savings for the taxpayer.


6 posted on 02/05/2013 4:07:52 PM PST by MeganC (“Free Men Need Not Ask Permission!”)
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To: Professional Engineer

They should just make the economy so that all women can stay home with their kids, all day.

Should mommies HAVE to work...? I think not.


7 posted on 02/05/2013 4:08:09 PM PST by gaijin
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To: Professional Engineer

Cool, we can spend the rest of the time on FreeRepublic.


8 posted on 02/05/2013 4:09:40 PM PST by Track9 (hey Kalid.. kalid.. bang you're dead)
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To: Vince Ferrer

Yeah the “29er” plan sounds great.
It will pump up Baraq’s employment stats too....


9 posted on 02/05/2013 4:10:45 PM PST by nascarnation (Baraq's economic policy: trickle up poverty)
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To: Professional Engineer

40 hours isn’t enough!!!

I averaged over 12 hours a day 6 days a week for over 40 years and sometimes that wasn’t enough.


10 posted on 02/05/2013 4:11:41 PM PST by dalereed
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To: Professional Engineer

There was a guy on Cavuto today urging for a shorter work week and mandatory vacations like in Europe.

The cuts in work would produce cuts in energy used resulting in cuts in greenhouse gasses and the cost savings over a hundred years would be in the trillions. There would be real climate change

I thought the interviewer (not Neil) was going to burst out laughing.


11 posted on 02/05/2013 4:12:40 PM PST by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....The fairest Deduction to be reduced is the Standard Deduction)
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To: Professional Engineer

I am retired and could not work that much even if I wanted to.


12 posted on 02/05/2013 4:12:55 PM PST by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: Mr. K

“You would not get paid a lot but hey! I would shovel ditches if I could have 4 days a week off every single week.”

LAZY!!!


13 posted on 02/05/2013 4:13:54 PM PST by dalereed
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To: dalereed

Doing things with his kiddies and planting gardens doesn’t sound lazy to me.


14 posted on 02/05/2013 4:24:28 PM PST by DLfromthedesert
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To: Professional Engineer

Okay, let’s drill down a bit... shall we?

The labor force today is 160m, with 140m employed and 20m unemployed.

Is the proposal on the table for, say, 240m to work a 25-hour week? Didn’t they try this for 50 years behind the Iron Curtain a few years back?

Or, just as likely, is the proposal for the aforementioned 140m employed to work 25 hrs, and the other 20m+80m taking from the system, and for that 140m to pay 60% higher taxes so that the govt collects the same amount?


15 posted on 02/05/2013 4:24:43 PM PST by C210N (When people fear government there is tyranny; when government fears people there is liberty)
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To: Professional Engineer
sure, as they starve to death while freezing in the dark cause they are broke
16 posted on 02/05/2013 4:26:37 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: Professional Engineer

I think Norway is close to this model.


17 posted on 02/05/2013 4:28:42 PM PST by Chickensoup (200 million unarmed people killed in the 20th century by Leftist Totalitarian Fascists)
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To: Professional Engineer
A proposal worth analyzing in some depth. I'm surprised at the mindlesss kneejerk reactions here. The 40 hour work week is a norm of fairly recent origin and not at all a universal norm, so why is it considered a sacrosanct minimum?
18 posted on 02/05/2013 4:30:22 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: Professional Engineer

sheesh things are already running at the speed of cold molasses, this would make it worse


19 posted on 02/05/2013 4:36:06 PM PST by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: goodnesswins

Working all the long hours during my 30’s and 40’s, some weeks as many as 90 hours, it has destroyed my body. I have so many arthritic problems, tendonitis, back issues, etc. I took 2 weeks off at Christmas and OMG, I felt so much better. I think 25 hours sounds like a terrific work week now that I’m 60. I could do that until I reach 80!


20 posted on 02/05/2013 4:48:24 PM PST by DallasDeb
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