Daylight Saving Abolition - Why More Countries Are Ending the Clock Change

The Global Movement to End Clock Changes

Daylight saving time was first introduced as a wartime energy-saving measure when Germany adopted it in 1916. For more than a century it has spread across most of the developed world, but momentum has reversed in the late 2010s. A 2018 European Commission public consultation (about 4.6 million responses) found 84 percent of respondents wanted to end the twice-yearly clock change, and in 2019 the European Parliament voted in favor of abolishing the practice (though member states in the Council never reached agreement, so it has not become binding law).

The EU directive left it to member states to decide whether to fix permanent summer time or permanent winter time, and disagreement among countries has delayed implementation past the original 2021 target. Even so, the political signal is clear, and similar abolition discussions have spread to North America, Russia, and Asia. The era of nearly universal DST appears to be ending.

Health Evidence Has Become Hard to Dismiss

The strongest case against DST comes from medical research. Multiple studies have reported a temporary rise in heart attack risk in the days immediately after the spring forward transition, and a meta-analysis by Manfredini et al. (2019) confirmed this rise after the spring shift. Sudden disruption to circadian rhythms is thought to put acute stress on the cardiovascular system. For the fall transition, no consistent effect has been found.

Sleep medicine research finds that adaptation to a clock change takes one to two weeks for most people, and during that window traffic accidents, workplace injuries, and reports of mental distress all increase. Researchers describe the chronic mismatch between social schedules and biological clocks as "social jet lag," and DST is widely seen as making this mismatch worse rather than better.

The Energy Saving That Did Not Materialize

DST's original purpose was to save energy by shifting daylight to evening hours, but modern lifestyles produce small or even negative net effects. A study by Kotchen and Grant (2011) of household electricity data in Indiana, which had recently adopted DST statewide, found that residential electricity consumption rose by about 1 percent overall, and by 2 to 4 percent in the fall. Reduced lighting use was more than offset by increased demand for heating and cooling.

The shift to LED lighting, which uses a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs, has further weakened the energy argument. The savings DST was supposed to deliver are now negligible. It has also been argued that the longer evenings of DST encourage more recreational driving, increasing fuel consumption. The original justification has not aged well.

Permanent Summer Time vs Permanent Standard Time

When countries decide to abolish DST, they must choose which clock to keep year-round. Russia tried permanent summer time in 2011, but dark winter mornings drew enough complaints that it switched to permanent standard time in 2014. This precedent has shaped the debate elsewhere by demonstrating that permanent summer time has real downsides.

Sleep scientists tend to favor permanent standard time because it aligns more naturally with the sun's position and the body's circadian clock. Business and recreation sectors often prefer permanent summer time for the lighter evenings. This split has made coordination difficult, especially in Europe, where neighboring countries do not want to wind up an hour apart from each other after the change.

Japan's DST Debates and Why It Never Stuck

Japan briefly observed DST from 1948 to 1951 during the postwar U.S. occupation, but the Japanese public disliked it and the government repealed it. The idea has resurfaced periodically: at the 2008 G8 Hokkaido summit and in 2018 as a heat-mitigation measure for the Tokyo Olympics (held in 2020), but neither attempt led to legislation.

Several factors keep DST off the table in Japan. The hot, humid summer means lighter evenings do not translate into outdoor activity; long working hours mean a 1-hour clock shift does not actually shorten time at the office; and the IT system retrofit cost was estimated in the trillions of yen for 2018. Combined with the global abolition trend, Japan adopting DST anytime soon looks extremely unlikely.