Towards a More Rational and Sustainable Working Time

Local and Regional Time Agenda

Time has long been a focus for social reform, from 19th-century campaigns for 8-hour days to 20th-century movements for paid holidays and parental leave. In the 21st century, there is a growing interest in how time can be organised differently, partly because of sharp inequities between the time-rich and the time-poor, prompting institutional innovation to help cities, in particular, to coordinate time more effectively. Thinking on a more rational and sustainable use of time (especially working time) is an increasingly urgent demand from society, which, more than ever, says: “I don’t have time.”

This Agenda is delighted to present 19 working time public policies implemented at various levels of urban governance that are already changing working conditions for the better. The showcased policies are complemented by expert insights from Tatiana Pignon and Alexandra Arntsen, from the European Working Time Network, and those of Marta Junqué Surià and Nadia García Ruiz, from the Time Use Initiative. Together, they offer a pathway to understand the varying dimensions of how to conceive local and regional public policies that create a more rational and sustainable working time.

Preface to the Agenda

Working time tendencies across Europe. Advancing local economies through working time reduction

A striking feature of the work-time reduction movement is its reach across vastly different political, economic, and institutional landscapes. The fact that an increasing number of local governments, with different levels of autonomy and different political interests, are pioneering such initiatives shows just how transformative the policy can be. In a world of polycrisis, working time reduction is one of the most promising policy avenues available to local authorities — strengthening economic resilience while enabling social justice and environmental sustainability — with the potential to yield transformative benefits to people, the environment, and the economy alike.

Tatiana Pignon

Associate Director at the Autonomy Institute

Alexandra Arntsen

Board of Directors and the Coordination Team for the European Work-Time Network

Recomendations for a more rational and sustainable working time in the age of digitisation and AI

Ultimately, whether we will have more or less free time in the future does not depend on the technology itself, but on the collective decisions we make as a society regarding its deployment. The contemporary culture of acceleration, intensified by digitalisation, demands that we consciously reclaim slowness, rest, and the quality of time. To guarantee the right to time and social well-being in the digital era, we must pursue a deep cultural transformation centred on the human rhythm. This is not about doing things faster, but about doing them better —more sustainably, more equitably and in a more rational way towards workers and people.

Marta Junqué Surià

Director of the Time Use Initiative

Nadia García Ruiz

Policy Consultant at the Time Use Initiative