The author Teresa Bücker has written a book. In it she deals with the effects of time poverty on society. She calls for the 20-hour week for everyone. So that everyone has more time for care work.
The author Teresa Bücker calls for a 20-hour week for everyone in her book “All_Time – A Question of Power and Freedom”. In an interview with “Stern”, Bücker says: “Everyone should be able to divide the 20 hours of work themselves. […] 20 hours of paid work for everyone would be a model that would leave enough time for the other areas of life.”
Above all, Bücker aims to increase the time for so-called care work – i.e. for childcare, elderly care or time for yourself. “It’s a very unattractive debate, I know,” said Bücker to “Stern”. But: “We have to find a social way of distributing care work better.”
So far, it has mainly been women who have been left with the care work. And in the long term, according to Bücker, many people would “lose their jobs for a long time” because they would have to look after children and relatives themselves if there were not enough educators and caregivers.
Care work is a “glue for society”, said Bücker in the “Stern” interview. “It means doing something for society. But if we all work full-time and spend the evenings exhausted on the sofa, that’s not possible.”
According to Bücker, many people would define themselves through their gainful employment and slave away in the process. “You save so much sleep, you convince yourself that five or six hours is enough. This is downplayed or even heroized. But you can’t keep it up in the long run.”
According to Bücker, society incurs horrendous costs as a result of “disease-causing work”. However, these costs are not included. “That’s absurd,” says the author.
In the younger generations, she is already observing a trend towards less gainful employment and more care work. “Millennials and Gen Z, many no longer want to work full-time and are not aiming for management positions. I think it’s because Gen Z grew up with two full-time parents and they see them burn out.”
But of course it is not easy to achieve a social transformation. “The men would have to change the most,” says Bücker. “The 20-hour week would break up the classic male working life.” Only in retrospect do many men realize how much time for themselves and their families has been lost due to all the work.
Bücker believes in the possibility of change: “I think my ideas are realistic.” Of course, the 20-hour week will not be implemented in the next five years. But: “A compromise would be to establish 30 hours as a new full-time first.”