This is a plea to reconcile, in a gender-conscious manner, commodified labour and care work by providing both men and women ‘time to breathe’ over their life courses. Looming over the future of work are three trends – an ‘overheated’ work culture, a lack of time for personal and social care, and an intolerable gender discrimination stemming from the first two. Under such conditions a time-aware working time policy has to try to improve the temporal conditions of all forms of work over the lifespan, and in a manner that eliminates gender discrimination. There are already laws and collective agreements going in this direction. The ‘time option model’ supplied with temporal drawing rights would mark a radical further step in this direction. The objective of this working time policy would be, rather than just to limit working time, to enhance freedom at work and thus give people more space and time to care for societal needs.
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