A four-day work week can fix burnout
You deserve an extra 52 days off a year, with pay, and the moment has come to demand this time back.
A century ago, a poll predicted that by 2023 we would all be working only two days a week. A new technology that was sweeping North America would result in work being done in much less time. Back then, the newfangled tech was electricity and artificial light.
A similar technological leap happened in the 1990s. Productivity soared with the integration of the internet into all aspects of life and work. Remember? Tasks, like sending messages to clients, that used to take days now take seconds.
So what happened to all this gained time? Since we can get as much done in two or three days as a productive worker in the ’80s did in five, why are we still working a fiveday week? Simply put, greed.
Economic growth unsustainably consumes precious resources — and lives. Instead of returning time to people, productivity gains were turned into more profit for a tiny fraction of society. You are doing a lot more work for the same pay making those at the top extremely rich. This needs to change.
The pandemic provided the disruption needed to question assumptions about work and life. A four-day work week, without a reduction in pay, would be a powerful incentive for a new dialogue about work-life balance. It could also unlock the public support and capacity needed to tackle our most urgent problems.
This can apply to all workers, not just the 9-5 “white-collar” cohort. The introduction of a four-day week could include a phase-in of guaranteed annual income that would initially be available only to the most vulnerable. Those who are currently unable to make ends meet even on income from five days would not be left behind. This could be paid for by making overdue changes such as progressive taxation of the highest-income earners, and by closing corporate tax loopholes.
Imagine seven weeks off with pay. What value would this generate? Initially, many of us would likely rest and recover. But then we could see millions of people newly engaged as active citizens — reinvesting some of the extra time back into their communities. There would be more time to reconnect with friends and family, more capacity to rebuild community public spaces, and a renewal of local arts and social service organizations. These are all things that the “economy” does not measure, but that are foundational to a healthy and resilient society.
After years of pandemic, rising social and racial tensions, and climate disasters, everyone is exhausted, stressed and angry. Our political system and civil society organizations are at the breaking point. There is very little capacity to come together to address structural problems that increasingly intersect.
In this volatile context, it is clear that no government has the public support to do what is needed to address these issues. Leaders who are wary of the reaction to mask mandates in crowded grocery stores will never impose the kinds of measures needed to curb climate change or to address systemic racism. The public needs to be on board from the start.
And the best way to engage millions of people to rebuild our lives and our society is to liberate social capacity by giving everyone something precious that we all value: time. The four-day work week is already coming; it has been studied and tested extensively. But we need to flip the narrative. It’s not about the four days of working. It’s about the appeal and impact of the 52 days off — one day for each week of the year.
Going back to 1923, the productivity gains from Henry Ford’s innovative assembly line prompted him to cut the work week from six to five days, with no reduction in pay. He was on the right track. But since then, this progress has run into the ditch.
The problems we face individually and as a society will take time and a renewed sense of community to address. We have more important things to do now than spend our lives making a tiny group of very rich people even richer.