This is a big part of the problem with the modern interpretation in Spain and nearby countries. It used to be that most folks lived close to their work, and could go home for lunch+siesta in-between split shifts. As commutes are increasingly common, this doesn't work at all.
Given generally low employment numbers and the widespread desire for a shorter, more productive workweek, one could hope we start being able to pay folks enough to just work one each of the split shifts, but we're obviously a ways away from that.
Similarly, the school day seems to have grown longer to keep kids busy during their parents workshifts. Where previously many kids could attend a local school in their own village, and walk home for lunch (as kids in rural France were still doing when I was a kid).
My father is a farmer and does a siesta every day of the year. He comes back at home of working in the farm every day around 1PM, then we have lunch together and he goes on to take a nap (siesta).
In winter they are shorter, 30 minutes, as the day is short.
In summer, they can go over 1 hour easily, as the day is longer and is hot between 2 and 5 PM.
Of course, my father is it's own boss and old school farmer, young farmers don't do that, and try to work on an schedule.
And is the same about school, when I was a kid no one was driving me to the school or taking me back, I walked there on my own, went home at mid day for lunch, played some football after it, and then went back to school for a couple of hours at 3PM.
I feel we are slowly drifting away from natural times and actions to forced on schedule behaviour to fit within the cogs of a late-stage capitalism productive machine.
Is his own boss.
(And it would be “its” anyway - “it’s” is a contraction for “it is” and is wrong in this context)
What I'd really want to see is a histogram of weekly hours worked per worker for each country
For starters, it shows time spent at work. Meanwhile employees can do varying amount of work in the same amount of time. And I suppose that's what those Germans you referring to mean.
Second as the document notes: "The results are affected by the varying proportions of part-time workers across countries, in addition to differences in legal frameworks and in country-specific usual length of the workweek".
Eventually he cut his working hours in half, while actually doubling his output, because the shorter work hours required him to actually focus.
He was, of course, self-employed, and could design his work week how he liked.
I guess that's important for another reason: if someone else had been paying him by the hour, he would have experienced a 50% pay cut. Instead, his income doubled, because it was based on the actual results.