We can’t all just go ahead and switch to a twenty-hour or thirty-hour workweek. Reduction of work first has to be reinstated as a political ideal. Then, we can curb the workweek step by step, trading in money for time, investing more money in education, and developing a more flexible retirement system and good provisions for paternity leave and childcare. It all starts with reversing incentives. Currently, it’s cheaper for employers to have one person work overtime than to hire two part-time.54 That’s because many labor costs, such as healthcare benefits, are paid per employee instead of per
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