Conclusion

This chapter has shown that there are substantial gaps between, on the one hand, the actual hours of work and working time arrangements that currently exist, and on the other, workers’ needs and preferences regarding their working time. In particular, there is a substantial group of workers with ‘excessively’ long hours in comparison with their preferred hours, and simultaneously, a substantial group of workers whose working hours are substantially shorter than what they would prefer. The chapter also reviewed the implications of these imbalances or ‘gaps’ between workers’ actual and preferred working times, concluding that they have a number of negative impacts on workers’ ability to balance their work responsibilities with other aspects of their lives, such as family commitments, other social activities, and the increasing need for them to enhance their skills via lifelong learning. The result is a ‘decent work deficit’ in the area of working time resulting from these important gaps between workers’ needs and preferences regarding their working time and their actual working time arrangements.