Iceland’s shorter working week has been a huge success – and it’s changed my family’s life | María Hjálmtýsdóttir

For 90% of working Icelanders, a 36-hour week means less stress, more job satisfaction and time to enjoy life beyond work

I like to walk around old cemeteries and read the headstones. Here in Iceland, it has been customary to engrave people’s job titles below their names and as I age I find myself wondering if mine will say “Teacher”. Although I love my work, I kind of hope it will not.

Through the centuries, women’s headstones have rarely had titles other than “Housewife” or perhaps “Wife of [insert husband’s job title]”. Although today women in Iceland have all sorts of jobs, we have yet to reach full equality. But an important step on that journey has been the shortening of the 40-hour working week to 36 hours.

María Hjálmtýsdóttir is an activist and a teacher at a secondary school in Kópavogur, Iceland

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Iceland’s shorter working week has been a huge success – and it’s changed my family’s life | María Hjálmtýsdóttir

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