Despite rapidly rising productivity, the amount of time spent in formal work across most of the developed world remains fairly constant. Employment is maintained through a continual increase in consumption. As global limits are approached or surpassed, growth in consumption in the first world is no longer sustainable, putting future jobs at risk. This thesis evaluates the importance of working time policy in relation to sustainable development, and more specifically, looks at the advantages and disadvantages of a shorter working week in New Zealand. Finding that there is a strong argument in favour of a shorter working week (primarily for environmental and social reasons), as well as justification for state intervention, an investigation is made into the reasons why it is not being implemented. Using theories from political science, a conflict is found between the goals of sustainable development and the deeper held goals of economic growth. On top of this, there is a near complete absence of a ‘policy image’ in the public domain. External socio-economic changes – such as a rise in unemployment, or major energy shortages – are most likely to bring about support for the policy.

Paid working patterns are currently regulated by governments around the world for a range of social and economic reasons: to increase labour supply and skills; to provide a strong tax base to support an ageing population; to help people reconcile work and family life over increasingly diversified life courses; and to be in line with the general principle of the activating, employment led welfare state. Environmental considerations rarely feature in the design or evaluation of working time policy. Nevertheless, various authors working on policies for sustainable development argue that reductions in average paid working time could lead to environmental benefits: as people work less, they in turn earn less, and so consume less, resulting in lower environmental impacts from lower levels of production of products. This thesis takes this argument as its starting point, and synthesises these distinct perspectives on working time and its regulation to address two key questions: what level of environmental benefits could arise from such reductions in paid working time?; and what are the implications for the design of working time policy? The research addresses these questions, taking the case of greenhouse gas emissions, and the UK and the Netherlands in the early 2000s as case studies. Using household expenditure survey data and data on product emissions intensities, the relationship between paid working time and emissions is analysed at both the household and national levels. At the household level, statistically and substantively significant correlations are found between higher levels of paid work and higher levels of consumption and so greenhouse gas emissions. The effects on emissions of hypothetical changes in the working patterns of the national populations are then modelled. The research estimates that meeting current national objectives to increase labour market participation rates would increase national greenhouse gas emissions by 0.6-0.7%, a cost that might be considered acceptable if it also achieves its aims of reducing income poverty, benefit dependency, and social exclusion. Meanwhile, widespread reductions in average working hours and increased use of career breaks, with corresponding reductions in income, would reduce national emissions. The scenarios modelled (a 20% reduction in the working hours of full time workers, and increasing use of 3 month career breaks) lead to reductions of 3-4.5% in national emissions, with the corresponding increases in “leisure” time, reductions in income inequality, and reduced gender imbalances in the distribution of paid work potentially also improving wellbeing, social cohesion, and gender equality in work and care. The results indicate that environmental factors warrant consideration in the design and evaluation of working time policy, and that challenging but achievable levels of working time reduction could contribute a small but significant share to meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets. Policy instruments would need to address a range of values, attitudes and norms around employment and consumption, as well as employer and situational factors, if substantial working time reduction were to be achieved. Reconciling diverse environmental, social and economic goals also requires careful policy design, particularly for certain demographic groups such as the low income, who would need financial and other support to turn rights to reduce working time into functional freedoms that they could utilise.

This mixed-methods study examines factors determining employees' desire to reduce worktime. The results of a binary logit regression model, based on data from the Austrian Microcencus 2012, suggest that employees who prefer shorter weekly working hours are older, higher educated and work longer hours in white-collar positions, compared to those who do not wish to change their hours. Gender differences are greatest in terms of household and family characteristics, supporting the 'male breadwinner & part-time' model. Qualitative interviews have been conducted among employees who had the possibility to choose between a pay increase and equivalent leisure time via a new worktime policy ("Freizeitoption") implemented in 2013. The results suggest that employees with higher education tend to reduce worktime. The fact that money is valued from a long-term, security perspective, as well as the tendency of assessing work performances by output indicators can be regarded as major obstacles for worktime reductions. / Series: WWWforEurope

Avec la crise des temps caractérisée par le délitement des rythmes sociaux et le sentiment d'accélération, penser les temporalités est devenu un nouvel enjeu des politiques publiques. Cependant, un hiatus demeure entre les problématiques liées à l'hypertension des rythmes des territoires et les méthodes existantes pour les représenter. Les outils et cadres de pensées qui permettent de saisir et de qualifier des territoires polychrones et asynchrones afin de les aménager sont peu complémentaires au regard des multiples dimensions temporelles et de leurs implications en termes de pratiques spatiales. Par conséquent, les politiques des temps sont encore peu prises en compte dans les pratiques d'aménagement. Cette thèse ambitionne de contribuer à combler le décalage entre les besoins en termes de connaissance des rythmes de la ville et les limites de l'existant afin de favoriser l'intégration des différents temps sociaux dans les stratégies de développement territorial. Pour ce faire, nous explorons, d'une part, deux méthodes innovantes : la cartographie des attracteurs temporels et la photographie panoramique en série afin d'alimenter le chronoaménagement. Et d'autre part, nous questionnons les notions d'espace protéiforme et de saisonnalité afin de penser les rythmes dans des cadres durables, mais mouvants intégrants à la fois société et nature. La dialectique en théorie et pratique nous amène également à réfléchir sur le besoin de nouveaux cadres philosophiques et juridiques afin de bâtir une nouvelle architecture temporelle, une utopie pour construire le futur. / With the crisis of time, characterized by the crumbling of the social rhythms and the feeling of acceleration, thinking the temporalities through has become a new concern for the territorial public policies. However, a gap remains in the issues concerning the hypertension of the territorial rhythms and the existing methods to represent them. Tools and concepts witch qualify polychronous and asynchronous territories are not complementary in regard of the multiple time dimensions and their implications in terms of spatial practices. Therefore, the time policies are still not taken into account in management practices. This thesis aims to help bridge the gap between the needs in terms of knowledge of the rhythms of the city and the limitations of the existing in order to promote the integration of different social time in the territorial development strategies. To do this, we explore, first, two innovative methods: cartography of temporal attractors and serial panoramic snapping to improve the chronoplanning. And secondly, we question the notions of protean space and seasonal to think rhythms in sustainable management, but shifting integrating both society and nature. The dialectic between theory and practice also leads us to think that we need new philosophical and legal frameworks to construct a new temporal architecture, an utopia to build the future.

Bakgrunden till studien bygger på önskan om att barn och unga ska få en tobaksfri uppväxt. Tobak orsakar mycket ohälsa i världen och för att minimera den tobaksrelaterade ohälsan är det i ett folkhälsovetenskapligt intresse att arbeta med förebyggande insatser på flera plan. Då barnen är vår framtid så är det extra angeläget att ge dem verktyg för att göra hälsoval som bidrar till en hälsosam livsstil. Att välja bort tobak och att få växa upp i en tobaksfri miljö ger goda förutsättningar för att barn och unga får en ökad hälsa. Syftet med studien var att undersöka gymnasieelevers tobaksvanor samt inställning till policyn Tobaksfri skoltid och tobaksanvändning. Metod som användes för att samla in material var en enkätundersökning som innehöll både öppna och slutna frågor. I enkätundersökningen deltog 216 elever från en gymnasieskola i Skåne som tillhandahåller yrkesprogram. Resultaten gav en indikation på att elevernas tobaksvanor inte skiljer sig nämnvärt från andra studiers resultat. Resultaten visade även att eleverna var medvetna om att det fanns skilda regler för elever och skolpersonal vad gäller tobaksanvändning i relation till skolan. Eleverna efterfrågade tydlighet och regler från de vuxna och resultatet visade att eleverna påverkas av de vuxnas inställning, norm och agerande kring tobaksfrågor men även av hur regler implementeras och efterföljs. Slutsatsen vi kan dra av studien är att eleverna på gymnasiet vill att de vuxna sätter gränser och regler till förmån för deras hälsa. En ökad kunskap om elevernas tobaksvanor och inställning till tobaksfrågorna kan vara till hjälp i det tobakspreventiva arbetet på skolan. / The background to the study is based on the wish that children and adolescents get a tobacco-free growth. Tobacco causes a great deal of illness in the world, and to minimize tobacco-related illness, it is in the public interest to work on preventive action at several levels. As the children are our future, it is important to provide them with tools that contributes to a healthy lifestyle. To not choosing tobacco and growing up in a tobacco-free environment provides good conditions for our children and adolescents to get an increased health. The purpose of the study was to investigate high school student’s tobacco habits and the attitude to the Tobacco-free schoolday policy and the use of tobacco. Method used to collect material was a survey that contained both open and closed questions. In the survey attended 216 students from a senior high school in Skane who provided vocational programs. The results indicated that the students' tobacco habits do not differs from the results of other studies. They also showed that the students were aware of the separate rules for students and school staff. As well as the students, not only being influenced by the adults' attitude, norm and action on tobacco issues, but also how rules are implemented and followed. The conclusion we can draw from the study is that students in senior high school want the adults to set limits and rules in favor of their health. Increased knowledge about students' tobacco habits and attitude to tobacco issues can be helpful in tobacco-preventive work at school.