[pjc50]

We need a good "in defence of the partial work week".

In the UK, there is an ongoing political issue about declaring people with disabilities or chronic illnesses "fit to work". Everyone from cancer and dialysis patients to those with chronic fatigue, pain, depression or back injuries. An essentially binary prospect is presented: you have to take a job you are deemed fit to do, or the money you were relying on to eat is cut off.

The thing is, quite a lot of these people can do some things for some period of time. But if you force them to 40 hours it will run down their health and achieve zero productivity. With reasonable accomodation they could be part time workers. But nobody is interested in making this happen. The person who figures out the "hack" of making one 40 hour week out of four people's 10 hour weeks will be doing the world a great service.

Less extremely, this applies to parents of small children and the elderly; scope for doing more than zero hours, but not the full 40.