ABSTRACT
Working time issues have been at the heart of political and social debates since the Industrial Revolution. The focus of the debate, however, has changed over time. After the First World War, a number of legislative measures were introduced in order to regulate working time. The main objective of these initial laws on working time, which introduced the goal of an 8-hour working day, was to combat the adverse effects of long working days on employees’ mental and physical health in order to diminish the high numbers of industrial accidents and to standardize employers’ practices as regards working time. During the period of economic prosperity following the Second World War, as working conditions began to improve and incomes started to grow, there was a change in the focus of the debate on working time. In particular, the concerns about working time and health widened to include more general welfare issues, i.e. the distribution and trade-off of productivity gains and economic growth between increased income and/or leisure. In the context of full employment and sustained growth, most industrialized countries experienced a substantial reduction of actual working time.
