ABSTRACT
Hours of work feature prominently in expert and public debates about working conditions and workers’ lives in developing countries. In these debates the concern is being voiced that, as one element of poor working conditions, many workers are being required to work long and disruptive hours to the detriment of their health, families and lives outside of work. These concerns extend to the role of the law in improving working conditions. Discussions on the impact of globalization, in particular, incorporate a focus on its consequences for labour laws, including those that limit working hours and structure their scheduling. These fears about the future of legal regulation take different forms. It is pointed out, for example, that globalization has the potential to unleash destructive regulatory competition, resulting in a levelling-down of the protections found in labour laws, including those on working hours. In contrast, an alternative scenario does not foresee the weakening of national legal norms. Instead, it suggests that the standards embodied in legislative texts are having little influence on actual working conditions in developing countries; in the case of working time, that long and inconvenient hours could be widespread even in countries in which the legal standards are exemplary.
