Hours of work and the ecological footprint of nations: an exploratory analysis

Concerns over the unsustainability of current social and economic practices persist, despite significant improvements in recent decades in ecological efficiency – i.e. the ability to produce each dollar of economic output with fewer resource inputs and pollution outputs. As increases in production frequently outpace eco-efficiency improvements, the ecological impacts of many nations continue to grow. In light of such trends, eco-efficiency improvements may be inadequate to address ecological challenges unless accompanied by the notion of sufficiency, i.e. moderating the growth of production and consumption. One sufficiency-based option involves a shift in emphasis in the way already-affluent nations benefit from economic progress. Rather than taking advantage of continued labour productivity gains – the ability to produce more in every hour of labour – in the form of more production and material affluence, several writers have called for all or part of these gains to be channelled toward a reduction in hours of work and greater “time affluence”. However, there has not been sufficient empirical study of the connections between hours of work and environmental impacts. Through a cross-national comparison of OECD and other nations using a structural equation model that builds on Dietz and Rosa's [1994. Rethinking the environmental impacts of population, affluence, and technology. Human Ecology Review, 1 (2), 277–300.] and York et al.'s [2003a. Footprints on the earth: the environmental consequences of modernity. American Sociological Review, 68 (2), 279–300.] STIRPAT design, we find support for the hypothesis that hours of work are positively related to ecological footprint. This finding suggests that socially appealing ways to limit the volume of consumption growth, while creating opportunities for people to live better, may be available to complement the pursuit of eco-efficiency.