Reducing work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: UK employees' preferences for working-time reduction and the factors affecting them

背景和理由：公平减少温室气体排放以应对全球气候变化，要求公民的生活发生重大变化，特别是全球北方较富裕的个人。建议同时实现环境和社会政策目标的一个变化是减少工作时间(Gough，2013)。在环境方面，更短的工作时间可能会减少那些对排放负有最大责任的人的消耗(Buchs等人，2011年；Druckman等人，2012年)。从社会角度来看，减少工作时间可以通过分担工作来缓解失业(Jackson和Victor，2011)，而且与改善心理健康密切相关(Buhl和Acosta，2016)。但是，人们对其可行性表示怀疑。具有生态意识的公民具有同情心(Iosifidi，2016)9/13，但只占一小部分。更有希望引起更广泛兴趣的是雇员对过度就业的担忧，即全国工作人口对工作时间较少的偏好(Simic，2002)。对这些偏好的研究主要是定量的，无法探索潜在的动机：偏好是从表面价值解释的，而不是与国家工作时间制度(例如，工作场所法规、与全职/兼职工作和反社会时间相关的做法)相关的更广泛的社会经济和制度因素(Fagan，2001)。定性工作主要集中在关于女性偏好(Hakim，1995)或有特殊工作挑战的个人(Balderson等人，2020)的辩论上。因此，该项目寻求对英国富裕员工(即那些收入高于平均工资的员工)的工作时间偏好进行更有结构的了解，以此作为建立减少工作时间在缓解气候变化方面的潜力的一种手段。它的研究问题如下：英国更富裕的员工在多大程度上准备牺牲收入来换取更多的休闲时间？哪些群体(按收入、性别、职业等)更愿意这样做，哪种更少？阻止个人形成工作时间减少偏好的主要障碍是什么，或者如果他们这样做了，就按照他们的偏好行事？这些与英国的工作时间限制有什么关系？性别因素是如何影响这些动态的？我们将采用混合方法来回答这些问题。首先，将使用英国的季度劳动力调查，这是一项大型家庭抽样调查，包括实际工作时间和首选工作时间的问题。从这一微观数据中，将选择平均工资或以上的工人，并将其分为那些表明过度就业的人(即他们的实际工作时间超过预期)和那些不表明过度就业的人。使用一个二分因变量(过度就业/其他雇员)，将使用包括社会人口统计因素、家庭和家庭特征、就业条件、职业和收入在内的解释变量进行二元Logit回归。研究的定性部分将在定量部分完成后进行，旨在深入探索回归所表明的潜在动机。它将关注两家英国公司员工的经历，这两家公司近年来自愿减少工作时间，以提高生产率。他们的员工的经历可以为减少工作时间的实际操作提供特别的洞察力，从而提供更广泛的潜力。

Background and rationale: An equitable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in response to globalclimate change requires significant change in citizen's lives, particularly more affluent individuals in theGlobal North. A change recommended as fulfilling simultaneously environmental and social policyobjectives is a working-time reduction (Gough, 2013). Environmentally, shorter working hours are likelyto reduce consumption among those with greatest responsibility for emissions (Buchs et al, 2011;Druckman et al, 2012). Socially, working-time reduction can ease unemployment through job sharing(Jackson and Victor, 2011), and has been strongly associated with improved mental health (Buhl andAcosta, 2016).However, there are doubts about feasibility. Ecologically-aware citizens are sympathetic (Iosifidi, 2016)9 / 13but constitute only a small minority. More promising to generate broader interest are employee concernsabout overemployment ie preferences among national working populations for fewer hours (Simic, 2002).Research on these preferences is mainly quantitative, unable to explore underlying motivations:preferences are interpreted at face value rather than explored in relation to broader socio-economic andinstitutional factors related to national working-time regimes (eg workplace regulation, practices relatingto full/part time work and anti-social hours) (Fagan, 2001). Qualitative work has focused mainly ondebates about women's preferences (Hakim, 1995) or individuals with particular work challenges(Balderson et al, 2020).This project thus seeks to develop a more structurally-informed understanding of the working timepreferences of affluent employees in the UK (ie those earning above the average wage) as a means toestablish working-time reduction's potential in mitigating climate change. Its research questions are asfollows: To what extent are more affluent employees in the UK prepared to sacrifice income in return forgreater leisure time? Which groups (by income, gender, occupation etc.) are more prepared to do so andwhich less? What are the main obstacles preventing individuals from developing a working-timereduction preference, or acting on their preference if they do? How do these relate to the UK's workingtimeregime? How do gender considerations affect these dynamics?A mixed methods approach will be adopted to answer these questions. First, use will be made of UK'sQuarterly Labour Force Survey, a large household sample survey which includes questions on workingtimes, actual and preferred. From this micro-data, workers on or above average wages will be selectedand split between those who indicate overemployment (ie their actual working hours are greater thanpreferred) and those who do not. Using a dichotomous dependent variable (overemployed/otheremployees), a binary logit regression will be conducted using explanatory variables comprising sociodemographicfactors, household and family characteristics, employment conditions, occupation andincome. The qualitative part of the study will follow the completion of the quantitative part and bedesigned to explore in depth underlying motivations as indicated by the regression. It will focus on theexperience of employees of two UK companies which have voluntarily during recent years reducedworking hours to increase productivity. Their employees' experiences can provide particular insight onthe practical operation of working-time reduction and thus its broader potential.