The four-day working week

The four-day working week is an organizational practice that involves reducing the standard full-time working week by the equivalent of one working day, usually with no reduction in pay. The policy has been tested across a number of national pilots, with promising implications for health. Pilots tend to report significant improvements in the mental and physical health of participants, including benefits such as a reduction in work stress and sleep difficulties, along with increased time for care responsibilities and leisure. Participants in these pilots overwhelmingly wanted their organizations to continue on a four-day week. With these health benefits in mind - as well as a multitude of other arguments for working time reduction - key questions for researchers moving forward relate to the need to introduce working time reductions without adverse effects on job quality, as well as the practical and political challenges of rolling out working-time reductions on a societal scale.