Contents 1 Communal obligation 2 Psychological effect 2.1 Office workers and management 3 Lifelong learning 4 Teenagers and students 5 Weekly hours of work 5.1 Weekly hours of work in Germany since 1825 6 Labour markets and developing countries 6.1 Visiting developing countries 7 New pages

A wikia to advocate discuss a 28-hours (or less) working week plus 1 day of social work per week. This may be interesting in all countries with unemployment rates of any significance. The goal of the wikia is to differentiate between the various situations in different countries and to present ideas on how to apply models for a 28-hours (or less) working week that create the opportunity and incentives for about one day of social work per week. A special emphasis will be social work as a supply teacher, e.g. in a school setting as described in the K14 proposal (now superseded by the Wikiversity assistant teacher program) or similar scenarios.

Communal obligation Edit

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Inviting people systematically to participate in meaningful, cooperative activity that is not primarily motivated by the egoistical motivation to earn money is also a form of designed community. This could be seen as an obligation of society because not everybody is a psychologist or may have the insight to train a certain active mental vocabulary on purpose. It could also be seen as an obligation of society because individuals may require this assistance to counter detrimental psychological effects caused by a competitive economy, which serves the interest of the community as a whole, thus placing responsibility to alleviate detrimental effects on society as a whole.

Psychological effect Edit

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A beneficial psychological effect of a day in a different, social profession could be to allow people to break out of their day-to-day business, which can keep people in a monotonous daily routine or, at least, restrict their views significantly. Similar to a holiday breaking daily routine can be beneficial for people to think in different ways and to derive new inspiration. As a further effect it may increase bridging social capital in a society.

A motivation to keep some form of diary or other record of past work on the extra day (e.g. as an addition for somebody's curriculum vitae) could motivate people to actively choose more creative or interesting assignments. This could be a bit similar to a CAS diary. A beneficial effect of taking the work more serious would be that the extra day might also be perceived as more satisfying and meaningful.

Office workers and management Edit

A few days per month as a healthcare assistant or in another social profession should also be psychologically beneficial for many office workers, managers and other professions that may benefit from psychological balancing. Many professions entail a lack of social interaction or distort social interaction in a way that could be seen to ask for a corrective.

Lifelong learning Edit

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A 28+7 work schedule can also be used to allow advanced training and adult education. Participation in adult education (as student or teacher) can invite people to break out of their daily routine and to receive intellectual stimulation that may be scarce in some professions.

Teenagers and students Edit

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It may be interesting for teenagers and students to prepare for a different labor market than today's. People who haven't yet achieved an advanced position may be much more likely to cooperate to create a fairer labor market than people who might have to share their position and do additional work they might see as less desirable. ^[1] This could be an interesting topic for school parliaments and students' parliaments. ^[2]

^[1] As far as teaching is concerned I don't see the point why one might want to avoid it, even if one day of teaching per week could lead to a slightly reduced salary. Teaching would be a very obvious choice, at least for academics. --fasten 13:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

^[2] That may seem contradictory to the idea to demand a voluntary social year as a precondition for the right to vote in an official parliamentary election but it isn't. Certainly pupils should learn to make democratic decisions but they could do that in their own parliamentary system and even prepare future politics and still need to provide additional qualification to be allowed to vote in an official parliamentary election. A voluntary contribution doesn't become less voluntary because people respect somebody more who has done the voluntary work; the right to vote could be a formal appreciation that would be of little value anyway to people who didn't have a sufficient understanding or respect for community and democracy to want it.

Weekly hours of work Edit

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Weekly hours of work in Germany since 1825 Edit

Labour markets and developing countries Edit

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Rationalization may have again a significant influence on labour markets in the near future. ^[1] Sharing the intellectually challenging work through reduced hours of work or job sharing and creating more service-oriented and, possibly, more self-sufficient occupations for otherwise unemployed people may again become more relevant. The effect could also have an influence on underdeveloped countries. Likewise reduced productivity in developing countries could influence the labour markets of developing countries by creating new jobs either in the developing country or in a developed country. At the same time the 7 hours per week many people would spend as teachers (at least on occasion) could provide a large amount of teachers.

Visiting developing countries Edit

The time could also be accumulated over 1 or 2 years for a 2 or 4 month stay in a developing country to provide more teachers for developing countries. ^[3]

^[1] e.g.: Robots as harvest workers, Robo-builder threatens the brickie

^[3] see also: Year fourteen

New pages Edit

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