Working Time Reductions in the Austrian Press from 2020 to 2025: Assessing the Relationship between Media Discourse, Scientific Evidence and Sustainability Transitions

Reductions of paid standard weekly working time (WTR) have gained increasing attention in
recent years and constitute an important topic within ecological economics, degrowth, and
post-growth debates. Despite growing interest, media debates regarding WTR are underresearched.
This study addresses this gap by conducting a content analysis of all commentary
pieces on WTR published in nine Austrian daily newspapers between 2020 and 2025. Findings
are situated within the existing literature on WTR discourses in the media. Moreover, media
claims regarding the effects of WTR are compared with results from the scientific literature,
including systematic literature reviews and meta-regression analyses. Results show that a
majority of comments presents a negative stance towards WTR, with some variation between
newspapers. The discourse is primarily focused on the economic impacts of WTR, while social
effects receive comparatively less, and ecological outcomes almost no attention. The results
also suggest that the relationship between media claims and research is uneven. While some of
the arguments that receive limited coverage are addressed in a substantial body of literature,
others receive considerable media attention while being less covered by existing research.