OPTIME: SHAPING THE FUTURE OF WORK TIME: TOWARD FEASIBLE, INCLUSIVE, AND SUSTAINABLE MODELS OF WORKING TIME REDUCTION IN EUROPE

Debates on working time reduction (WTR) are accelerating in Europe’s policy and public arenas, reflecting demographic pressures, low growth, and demands for more sustainable labour markets. While WTR promises gains in well-being, equality, and inclusion, evidence remains fragmented, often limited to single-country pilots and one-size-fits-all models such as the four-day week. OPTIME – Opportunities for Time in Employment, Environment, and Equality – addresses this gap by generating the first cross-national, multi-level evidence base on feasible, inclusive, and sustainable WTR models. OPTIME integrates micro-, meso-, and macro-level perspectives across eight European countries, combining secondary datasets, historical reform studies, existing pilot data, new primary data on enablers and barriers, new multi-country pilots, and online experiments.