One of the things I predicted a long time ago is starting to take effect now, where for instance in Japan next week, there will be a concerted push toward four-day working weeks. The reasoning they are giving behind this is to combat the falling birth rate, which is at around 1.2 births per woman - where the replacement rate required for a population is at around 2.1 - so it makes sense that a better work-life situation could impact on the numbers. To some degree. However, I think it will have less impact than believed, because for instance in Finland where there is a support culture to a greater degree for families, there is still only a 1.25 birth rate.
But I don't think that a four-day week is going to impact on this, but that doesn't mean it won't have an impact on society. Because essentially what it means is that there are other employment options available, where the impact of technology is going to start taking more and more jobs. This means that there is less work, but with a potentially mandated four-day week, it essentially increases employment by twenty percent, as there is a 1-day "job share" rotation. Even as jobs are lost, four jobs become five jobs.
And, because technology is going to keep taking jobs to increase profits, there will have to be a change to the way corporate taxes work, as the social contract is broken. Essentially, the deal is that businesses pay less tax because they employ people and pay them to fuel economic consumption - but the less they do that, the more burden is put on those who are able to work. The taxes increase for workers, but less people are working. Taxpayers also fund the education systems that build the skills necessary for the companies to leverage, but when companies are hiring less, the system breaks down there too.
So, essentially the much touted "universal basic income" (UBI) comes into play at this point, where companies with soaring profits on the back of reduction in workforce, will be forced to fund the additional income - otherwise, they have no customers anyway. The universal basic income can support those who are not working at the lower end, but because it is universal nationally), it means those who are working have incentive to reduce their hours to s three- or four-day week without losing much, to give space to retrain, have families, or just enjoy life a bit more. This gives opportunity for those out of work to pick up employment for three or four days a week on top, as well as retrain also.
What I have sketched here is pretty bare bones as an idea and I have written in depth about some of these things before, but what should be clear for everyone by now, is that the economy as it is is untenable going forward. Sweeping changes need to be made to the entire system from the ground up, including how we value activity and human life. The concept of governance has to be changed from a support function for corporate profits under the assumption it leads to social wellbeing, to a wellbeing first model where corporations are mechanisms to build humanity. And this means the corporate tax systems have to be overhauled to this end, and that has to happen at the global level, due to the interdependencies of businesses around the world, including the banking systems.
The current governance, finance, business and society structures are completely misaligned for a thriving society, which is why we are seeing such a degradation in living standards, wealth gaps, birth rates and health outcomes. The profit first models are going to collapse, because they eat themselves as they consume endlessly until there is nothing left. If there is no one able to consume the products and services of the businesses, the businesses fail - but that doesn't mean the people concerned don't still have needs and demands.
I reckon the changes in Japan aren't going to have much of an impact to begin with, but I do believe that as more and more of the problems arise from aging populations and the services needs not being provided for, unemployment rising based on no suitable jobs, and a growing problem with conglomerates taking all resources to the point that entire countries are collapsing in the vacuum, things will change. But, whether those changes which are extreme by the standards of what we have now and how we think about a functioning society are enough early enough, is yet to be seen.
When people consider a four-day week, they are thinking about the extra free time they will get. But what we really should be thinking about is how valuable time is, and how we should be spending it in order to make personal lives better. Ultimately, our personal lives are heavily impacted by the social structures we operate in, and no matter how much money an individual might have, if society collapses, wellbeing is far from optimised.
Even though we have built a global economy, we keep acting as if we are independent.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]