Spain's famous midday nap could be headed for the big sleep.
Mariano Rajoy, the country's prime minister, recently announced his intentions to remove the siesta from normal work schedules and instead shorten the work day to end at 6 p.m.
The move would seek to raise fertility rates, improve productivity, and help families whose child care gets disrupted because of the long work hours.
"In my house we would be totally in favor of changing the schedules," Cristina Matarranz, a mother of two who works at a bank in Madrid, tells the BCC. "My kids virtually never see their father during the week."
Abolishing the siesta may simply be a sign of the times.
When it was first introduced in the mid-20th century, it was mainly a way for farmers to escape the scorching heat of the afternoon sun. They could rest indoors and resume work after the temperature had fallen a few hours later.
But now that much of work has been industrialized and digitized, many Spaniards see taking a long break from an air-conditioned office just to trek home for lunch as more of a nuisance than a welcome respite.
A raft of evidence suggests Rajoy's proposal is a good idea for Spain's well-being.
Data from the OECD, for example, finds Spain's longer work hours may actually decrease performance. Compared to a country like Germany, which has citizens who work an average of 1,393 hours per year and produce $58 in GDP per hour of work, Spaniards work 1,666 hours per year but only produce $50 in GDP per hour of work. (The US, with its tireless work ethic, by contrast, sees an average of 1,790 hours of work and $64 in GDP.)
While naps do offer some personal health benefits, it may be healthier for the country as a whole to do away with them as a fixture in people's work flow. A 2013 report from Spain's National Commission for the Rationalisation of Working Hours argued that nixing the siesta could result in higher quality of life and higher fertility rates.
"We need more flexible working hours, to cut our lunch breaks, to streamline business meetings by setting time limits for them, and to practice and demand punctuality," the report reads.
Rajoy seeks to make the change as he heads into this summer's national election, all in effort to bring the country up to date with much of the rest of the working world.
