ABSTRACT
The gap between individuals’ working time preferences and their actual working hours highlighted by recent research has always been one of the themes underlying policy approaches towards the regulation of working time. In recent years, however, the need to more strongly reflect workers’ preferences in their work schedules has become more prominent as countries across the industrialized world have embarked on regulatory agendas which seek to realize this goal. This chapter reviews traditional methods of incorporating workers’ needs in working time regulation and highlights the tendency of regulatory trends to undermine this kind of conciliation. It then outlines the range of possible approaches towards responding to workers’ needs, focusing on those which promote individual influence over working hours, and indicating the kinds of questions they raise for the future of working time regulation.
