LABOUR, HOURS OF

the proportion of a person's time spent at work. Hours of labour have declined greatly since the middle of the 19th century. Workers in advanced industrial countries spend far fewer hours per year in a given place of work than they did formerly. Moreover, they spend a smaller portion of their lives in the labour force because of prolonged school enrollment and earlier retirement. The movement for shorter hours began almost with the formation of unions but met with great employer resistance. In Great Britain it was not until 1847 that an effective limit of 10 hours per day was placed upon the factory employment of women and children. In the United States, state laws were enacted in the 1840s and '50s, but it was not until the 1870s that any such law contained enforcement provisions. The primary economic basis for employer resistance was that, during the 19th century, capital equipment was scarce and expensive relative to labour. In Australia, where the general shortage of labour made unions successful, the eight-hour day was established in the skilled trades by the 1850s. A shorter working day was a major demand of trade unions in most countries during the latter part of the 19th century and throughout the first half of the 20th. Nevertheless, the length of the workweek declined only slowly prior to 1920. As technical progress made an hour of labour more productive, employers' resistance to shorter hours was reduced. During World War I, the eight-hour day and six-day week became standard in American factories. Most European countries also made substantial gains toward achieving the 48-hour week during the 1920s, many of them signing the international convention, sponsored by the newly formed International Labour Organisation, that declared the 8-hour day or 48-hour week to be a standard. A principal argument for shorter hours, which gained prominence during the 1930s, was that scarce opportunities for gainful employment ought to be shared among the largest possible number of workers. A standard 40-hour week resulted in the United States when the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 imposed a financial penalty upon employers who hired workers for more than 40 hours. The 40-hour week was also established in France by its Popular Front government in 1936. Australia had achieved a 40-hour week by 1948, and Canada had done so by the early 1960s. Most countries of Europe were approaching that figure by the late 1970s, while in Latin America the workweek averaged 45 hours. In most countries, provision is made for permitting work in excess of the prescribed number of hours. Such overtime work must usually be compensated at premium hourly rates.