New Labour and work-time regulation: a Marxian analysis of the UK economy

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of work-time regulation, introduced by the UK's New Labour governments (1997 to 2010). In doing so, we return to Marx's hypotheses regarding the length of the working day. These include the arguments that class conflict over the length of the working day is inherently distributional in a surplus-value sense and that workers often display a preference for reduced suggest the impact of these policy initiatives was broadly favourable, though the effect on men and women was different.

Underutilisation of Labour: Underemployment and Skills-Mismatch in Turkey

“…This is confirmed in several studies after the 2008 recession (Jefferson & Preston, 2010;Tam, 2010) or the COVID-19 pandemic (Dean Avila & Lunsford, 2022;Khan et al, 2021). Existing literature also shows that underemployment is experienced more in certain professions such as executives (Feldman & Leana, 2000), retail sales workers (Erdogan & Bauer, 2009) or technicians and associate professionals (Philp & Wheatley, 2013). Feldman (1996) proposed that employees who have been laid-off recently (Feldman et al, 2002), who have been unemployed for a long time (Virick & McKee-Ryan, 2017) and who have become career plateaued (More & Rosenbloom, 2022) are more likely to be underemployed, whereas an early start in job hunting, an intensive job search effort, geographical relocation to seek jobs and retraining may reduce the possibility of underemployment.…”

Shorter hours wanted? A systematic review of working‐time preferences and outcomes

“…If the goal is to change standard hours, then exploring WT preferences and decisions in occupations and social groups with such hours is necessary. Changing "normal working hours" may have far-reaching consequences because preferences concentrate around such standards: people with longer working hours are more inclined to reduce their WT and people with shorter working hours are more inclined to increase it (Drolet and Morissette 1997;Gerold and Nocker 2018;Golden 2015;Philp, Slater and Wheatley 2015;Reynolds 2003;Tam 2010). This also indicates that people tend to internalize structural conditions as preferences, which takes us to the next point on the use of quantitative and qualitative methods.…”

Travailler moins? Revue systématique des préférences et décisions en matière de temps de travail

“…Il est aussi important de chercher à mieux connaître les contextes moins extrêmes, en particulier lorsqu'il est envisagé d'étendre la réduction du temps de travail: lorsque le but est de modifier la durée normale du travail, il faut étudier les préférences et les décisions relatives au temps de travail dans les professions et catégories sociales où cette durée s'applique. La modification de la durée normale du travail peut en effet avoir des conséquences importantes, parce que les préférences se concentrent autour de cette norme: les travailleurs qui ont une durée de travail plus longue sont plus enclins à la réduire, tandis que l'inverse est vrai pour ceux qui ont une durée plus courte (Drolet et Morissette, 1997;Gerold et Nocker, 2018;Golden, 2015;Philp, Slater et Wheatley, 2015;Reynolds, 2003;Tam, 2010). On peut également en déduire qu'en règle générale les individus internalisent les facteurs structurels pour les transformer en préférences, ce qui nous amène à la troisième limite, relative aux méthodes employées.…”