"The bad news, as demonstrated by the American story, is that an age of leisure will not automatically flow from increased productivity. The good news is that political interventions can bring us closer to this vision.
“While Keynes’ predictions regarding productivity growth have actually been exceeded over the past nearly 100 years,” conclude Behringer, Gonzalez Granda, and van Treeck, “the obstacles to more leisure time are primarily socio-political in nature.”
The Scandinavian social democracies, even in their recently weakened states, offer the starkest counterexample. They are highly productive, but their workers put in six to ten fewer hours per week than their American counterparts do, a trend that holds for low and high earners alike.
Unions have proven essential in translating productivity gains into shorter working hours. American union membership has collapsed since the postwar period; Scandinavian union rates have fallen recently, but workers in the region still maintain a powerful, centralized collective bargaining system that secures shorter workweeks, generous paid leave, and predictable schedules.
The comprehensive welfare systems in these countries further reduce overwork. With universal health care, subsidized childcare, free education through university, and robust social safety nets, Scandinavians don’t face the same financial pressures that drive Americans to sacrifice their free time for a paycheck. Importantly, these welfare policies have also increased female workforce participation, reducing women’s spousal dependency and decreasing the pressure on men to work long hours to support their families.
Scandinavian societies have seen inequality expand and their welfare states erode in recent years, but these features are still significantly more pronounced than in the United States."
https://jacobin.com/2025/03/work-keynes-scandinavia-class-leisure/
