工作时间减至一周20小时可推动经济增长？

People could spend more time bonding with one another and improving relationships

Working less hours each week will help boost the economy by creating more jobs and improving quality of life, according to a think tank.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) will meet with other experts at an event in London this week to find a solution to unemployment, the credit crisis and reducing the country's carbon footprint.

The NEF, which has organised the gathering with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics, said their solution to the problem would be enforcing a 20-hour working week.

The foundation has previously suggested a similar strategy and said the move would mean people had more time to think about the effect they are having on the environment and that it would allow for job sharing.

It admitted that incomes would be reduced dramatically but argued individuals would have more time to carry out worthy tasks.

Parents could spend more time with their children or other dependents and there would be more opportunity to get involved with civic duties or charity work.

Anna Coote, co-author the report, told the Observer: 'There's a great disequilibrium between people who have got too much paid work, and those who have got too little or none.

'Are we just living to work, and working to earn, and earning to consume?'

She argued that the government needed to think about what constitutes economic success and whether aiming to boost Britain's GDP growth rate should be a priority.

The UK has the longest working week of any major European economy and economists believed, in time, that as technology improved people would be able to spend less time at work.

Parents of young children already have the right to request more flexible work hours but the NEF is keen to push the government to make this a right for everyone.

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

双语资讯

(Agencies)

据某智囊机构称，减少每周工作时间有助于创造更多工作岗位，提升生活质量，推动经济增长。

新经济基金会将在本周与其他专家在伦敦会面，商讨失业、信贷危机以及减少国家碳足迹等问题的解决办法。

新经济基金会和伦敦政治经济学院的社会排斥分析中心组织了这次会议，他们提出的解决办法是实行20小时工作周。

基金会以前曾提出过相似的对策，该组织称，这个行动意味着人们有更多的时间思考他们对于环境的影响，也使工作得以共享。

该组织承认，人们收入会大大减少，但指出每个人都将有更多的时间来做更有价值的事情。

父母可以花更多的时间陪伴孩子和其它家属，也有更多机会履行公民义务，参与慈善活动。

报告的合著者安娜•库特告诉《观察家报》说：“有些人承担太多带薪工作，有些人却没有工作或少得可怜，两者之间存在着严重失衡。”

“我们活着就只是为了工作，工作为了赚钱，赚钱为了消费吗？”

她认为政府要思考经济成功的要素是什么，以及是否应以推动英国GDP增长率为首要目标。

在欧洲主要经济体中，英国每周的工作时间是最长的。经济学家们认为，当科技发展了，人们最终将能少花些时间在工作上。

带小孩的父母已经有权要求更灵活的工作时间，但是新经济基金会仍然热衷于推动政府采取行动，让每一个人都拥有这个权利。

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Vocabulary:

disequilibrium: 不均衡

in time: 后来渐渐，终于，最终