The 40-hour week isn’t working anymore. It’s time we switched to a 15-hour one.

A strange thing happened on the way to the leisure society.

It was once widely anticipated that the process which saw the standard working week fall from 60 to 40 hours in wealthy nations over the first half of the 20th century would continue.

As we now know, this did not happen. The official working week has not fallen significantly in several decades. Average working hours per household have increased. The effect is that many feel that life is now less leisured than in the past.