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Perhaps not a surprise. But working less, for the same pay, makes workers feel better and more relaxed.
we study how an organization-wide 4-day workweek intervention—with no reduction in pay—affects workers' well-being.
These are the findings from new peer-reviewed research published in Nature Human Behaviour, where researchers monitored the effects of a four-day work week for six months.
About 2,896 employees across 141 organisations in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom took part.
They answered surveys before and after the trial. Their answers were then compared with 285 employees from 12 companies who worked a normal five-day week.
shows improvements in burnout, job satisfaction, mental health and physical health—a pattern not observed in 12 control companies.
Three key factors mediate the relationship: improved self-reported work ability, reduced sleep problems and decreased fatigue. The results indicate that income-preserving 4-day workweeks are an effective organizational intervention for enhancing workers' well-being.
[...] "We know when people are really stressed and burnt out and not sleeping well, productivity doesn't just continue upwards," Dr Sander said.
Who wouldn't want to work one day less per week for the same pay ...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-22/four-day-work-week-health-burnout/105555392
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02259-6
(Score: 5, Funny) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday July 26, @02:12PM (7 children)
That does not seem right. Productivity in the West is already dwindling. In global scale, this is obviously a competitive downgrade.
I tell you what: instead of 20% work time reduction, what about keeping it as it is and put 20% of productive population in military, to secure more resources cheaply?
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Ox0000 on Saturday July 26, @02:50PM (2 children)
Did you just suggest acquiring resources Manu Militari? Something like a "Lebensraum" thing maybe: because "we need them and are therefore justified in just taking them from whoever holds them right now"?
This somehow rings familiar but I can't quite place it in time or space.......
(Score: 5, Informative) by mrpg on Saturday July 26, @03:41PM (1 child)
Here are historical examples of "manu militari" resource acquisition justified by claiming necessity:
**Colonial Era Examples:**
- **British in India**: Justified controlling spice trade and textile production as "necessary for empire"
- **European scramble for Africa**: Claimed need for raw materials, markets, and "civilizing mission"
- **Spanish conquistadors**: Justified seizing Aztec/Inca gold as divine right and economic necessity
**Modern Examples:**
- **Japan in WWII**: "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" - claimed need for oil and raw materials justified invading Southeast Asia
- **Soviet Union in Eastern Europe**: Claimed security needs justified occupying buffer states and extracting resources
- **Iraq's invasion of Kuwait (1990)**: Saddam claimed economic necessity and historical rights to Kuwaiti oil
**Cold War Resource Wars:**
- **US interventions in Latin America**: Justified by "protecting American business interests" (United Fruit Company in Guatemala, etc.)
- **Soviet influence in Africa**: Claimed ideological necessity to secure mineral resources
**Contemporary Concerns:**
- **China's South China Sea claims**: Justified by "historical rights" and resource needs
- **Russia's actions in Ukraine**: Partly framed around energy resources and agricultural land
- **Water conflicts**: Various nations claiming "vital national interests" over river systems
**The Pattern:**
Each case follows the same logic: "We need these resources for our survival/prosperity/security, therefore we're justified in taking them." The justification always frames it as defensive or necessary rather than aggressive expansion.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, @05:54PM
So, basically, we are just dogs marking our territory. Our big brains only exist to rationalize it
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @04:29PM (3 children)
> put 20% of productive population in military, to secure more resources cheaply?
If you haven't noticed, the military seems to be one of the least productive segments of the economy overall. Not only do they do very little constructive, but they do it at tremendous expense when they do.
The only thing the military is good for is doing things that "polite society" isn't allowed to, like murder.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, @04:46PM
If you think about it, the military, and everyone in it, is a tool - in all meanings of the word - to be wielded or deployed by the government of the day in whatever capacity it pleases. People who join the military literally and explicitly declare "I will obey any and all order regardless of its morality, without question(*), I will not think for myself and obey like an automaton".
I do not understand why the military or its members are so revered in the USA.
(*) And don't give me the crap about "you are told to disobey illegal orders", the side that wins makes everything they did 'legal' anyway.
(Score: 3, Touché) by gawdonblue on Saturday July 26, @11:26PM (1 child)
Using the military for anything other than (small "d") defence is wrong, but empires will always justify its use otherwise by claiming that it was necessary for some unjustifiable reason (these days it's usually false claims about WMDs).
But to say that the military does very little that is constructive except at tremendous expense seems short-sighted. Space travel, the internet and GPS were all military programmes that benefit many of us every day.
Two of those (space travel/GPS) were both incredibly expensive but the costs have come down over time and they are now usable by the vast majority of countries and individuals.
Rolling out the internet has possibly cost more than the total spent in space but the costs were born by civilian entities and the military programme that developed it was not that expensive, and we're all here using it now.
(Never thought that I'd ever defend the military. Maybe 1960s military programmes weren't as bad as current ones.)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @11:34PM
>Space travel, the internet and GPS were all military programmes that benefit many of us every day.
I prefer the NASA approach: obvious military but with a figleaf of "in peace, for all mankind."
>the military programme that developed it was not that expensive, and we're all here using it now.
DARPA is a strange bird, not always useless, rarely as beneficial as they seem to be aiming for.
>Maybe 1960s military programmes weren't as bad as current ones.
Are you referring to Vietnam, or the end of the Korean adventure?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Saturday July 26, @02:52PM (19 children)
"Who wouldn't want to work one day less per week for the same pay ..."
And by extension, who wouldn't want to work at all for the same pay?
Yeah, socialism is great until you run out of other people's money.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mrpg on Saturday July 26, @03:30PM (6 children)
It's early, I just woke up, so I might be wrong but this feels like a complaint towards treating people better.
A few days ago I saw something about a woman from Dumbfuckistan who went to Europe and was complaining because supermarket cashiers had a chair to sit, she was impressed they were so "lazy".
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, @03:58PM (2 children)
This is a very strong example of much of what's wrong in today's "society" and politics. You can't just take someone's words at face value, you must interpret the words, and it always makes the originator look bad.
I wish I could understand where all of this is coming from. Probably TV and movies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday July 26, @04:25PM
This hypocrisy is an exercise of normal human behavior and psychology. What we excuse in ourselves and in-groups we identify with, we don't when it occurs in out-groups. When you combine that with the variety of media and propaganda that gives us plenty of excuses to indulge in that behavior, then the above is common behavior. It's a typical us-vs-them psychology that might have had evolutionary advantage way back when at the small tribe level of human society.
TVs and movies are a symptom of a related problem - the human cognitive tendency to tie everything into neat, simple stories. Complex situations are hard and require lots of energy/effort to understand. What we can simplify into our stories allows us to understand more.
My view is that these psychological short cuts have their place. We need to be reminded that there are ulterior motives and a good story can simplify a complex situation in a high fidelity, understandable approach. But as you note, these short cuts are also exploitable for nefarious or just plain self-destructive ways.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 27, @08:19AM
The OP labels this as socialism. It's not. There's a long thread in a journals arguing that Elon Musk shouldn't be called a Nazi. If only people were as staunchly opposed to misusing the socialism label. This isn't helpful to the discussion.
The OP uses a straw man argument about people not working at all. That's not even close to saying that people should work 32 hours per week instead of 40. Some businesses want to institute a six day work week [newsweek.com], and that used the be normal in the past. Does keeping the work week at 40 hours instead of 48 or more inevitably lead people not working at all? No! It's a straw man and is as unhelpful as if I refuted the six day work week with an argument about imposing a 168 hour work week.
The OP strongly implies that reducing the work week to 32 hours will diminish productivity, hence the part about running out of other people's money. It's a non-sequitur. Many studies support that a 32 hour work week doesn't reduce productivity from 40 hours, and might even improve it because people are more physically and mentally rested and have less stress.
The OP's argument is based on multiple logical fallacies and misuse of the word "socialism", which often has a negative connotation. It's detrimental to the discussion. I understand your concern, but in this context, I find your comment also unhelpful.
(Score: 1, Troll) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @04:27PM (2 children)
When I visited Germany from Dumbfuckistan (aka Miami) in 1990 I was impressed that the grocery stores were ALL closed on Sunday. Floriduh gave that up in the early 1970s.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, @04:45PM (1 child)
And went all in on the 10 Commandments in schools. Nobody asked it to make sense.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ox0000 on Saturday July 26, @04:54PM
Where's The Satanic Temple [wikipedia.org] when you need them. Now that Florida allows blatant displays of religious nature in schools, and because this is about equality, and certainly not about having a state-sanctioned religion which would be unconstitutional, certainly other religions should get to do the same as well, right?
I am eagerly awaiting a Baphomet statue to be displayed right next to the "10 commandments" in every room where those are displayed.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @04:37PM (3 children)
>Yeah, socialism is great until you run out of other people's money.
The money is actually irrelevant. What's needed is resources: food, shelter (incl: clothing), transport (incl: communication), entertainment, and tools for implementation of all the rest...
For decades, we have been capable of provisioning food and shelter for all the world's people, but there are two problems with implementation. First: people are greedy bastards by nature and would rather hoard resources to "incentivize" those without to do their bidding, and Second: Malthus wasn't wrong... if we keep breeding at anything resembling the past 60 years' growth rates we will run out of resources sooner than later.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, @04:47PM (2 children)
Financial insecurity is the way you get other people to do your chores. The fact some are born with lots of tokens and some are born with none means the ones with more tokens get their chores done for them. Because that's how life works, don't you see?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @11:12PM
>The fact some are born with lots of tokens and some are born with none means the ones with more tokens get their chores done for them. Because that's how life works, don't you see?
When I was in kindergarten (at the most expensive private school in two counties), they were teaching my classmates and I "the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Thing was, I was there because my parents were teachers in the public schools, and horrified at how that was working in the early 1970s, so they sunk an outrageous portion of their income on my school tuition.
My 14 or so kindergarten classmates, meanwhile, were learning the real golden rule at home: "he who has the gold, makes the rules." - from their parents who had most of the gold.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 28, @07:48PM
And then, those with few or no tokens get fed up (definitely not literally) and chop your head off and take yours. That too is how life works.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrpg on Saturday July 26, @05:12PM
And by extension, who wouldn't want to work at all for the same pay?
Oversimplification reduces complex causes to just one, making it harder to understand the real issues.
Exaggeration adds unnecessary causes, confusing the real reasons behind events or problems.
Both fallacies often appear in politics, science, and on important topics like trauma and education.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, @06:05PM
:-) Yeah, we have a president right now that can't even cut his own toenails.
Not true. Trillions for quantitative easing will always save the day! Ctrl-P, babe, print more dollars than atoms in the universe
(Score: 0, Troll) by https on Saturday July 26, @09:28PM
This has to be the stupidest meme I encounter on a regular basis. Or maybe the most pernicious? I don't know. It's wrong and harmful.
The reality of currency is that sovereign governments issue and define it, and "deficits" are only called that due to a quirk of accounting definitions - much like the integer 1 is not prime though starting mathematicians all think it should be.
Commerce can't happen beyond the level of barter and duels without governments printing money.
Here's a simple explainer [youtube.com] - warning, it's like an hour because it fucking well takes time to debunk a lifetime's worth of neocon lies.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 2) by aafcac on Saturday July 26, @11:48PM (1 child)
Only people at the bottom are expected to actually be working for 40 hours a week. Everybody else either doesn't bother to show up that much or spends a bunch of time screwing around or in meetings
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday July 30, @07:28PM
Or browsing sites like SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by corey on Sunday July 27, @12:39AM (1 child)
My thought was, well, this is obvious research, to the point of “duh!”
The reality is, while it might get a mention in a HR magazine somewhere, the business world will completely ignore it. Happiness isn’t directly related to money making (in the minds of C-suites). I mean, they’re still trying to force people to go to the office 5 days a week. That feels like an ongoing battle.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday July 27, @06:27AM
FTFY.
Some businesses are already doing it.
[nostyle RIP 06 May 2025]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Monday July 28, @07:40PM
A little alcohol rub on the skin before an injection is a good way to reduce the chance of infection. You reject that practice because funneling down 2 gallons of moonshine is generally fatal.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mrpg on Saturday July 26, @03:36PM
In France workweek is 35 hours (while 35 hours is the legal standard, actual working patterns vary quite a bit depending on industry and individual arrangements.)
In Chile it was 45, it is 44, it's going to be reduced to 42 in 2026, to 40 in 2028, and you will able to pact with your employer to work 10 hours 4 days a week.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @03:46PM (3 children)
We all live on the same planet, we have neighbors near and far.
Being "Lord of the Land" may be fun, able to wave your hand and have a trivially small number deducted from your accounts that grow faster than you spend them, but if the vast majority of your human neighbors on this planet are pissed off and miserable all the time, that's making your life shittier too, even if you can coerce them into doing your bidding.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @03:48PM (2 children)
wave your hand... to have your wishes be made reality ...
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 26, @05:48PM (1 child)
> wave your hand... to have your wishes be made reality ...
You mean like turning on a switch and light magically appears? In "developed" parts of the world nearly everyone commands energy slaves (Bucky Fuller's term), while barely noticing them.
The 4 day work week I've seen in practice was at a manufacturer of test equipment--the staff and management at that time was mostly engineers and when they asked around the staff generally preferred four 10 hour work days. So everyone except a small skeleton crew worked Mon-Thur and had three day weekends.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 26, @11:20PM
>You mean like turning on a switch and light magically appears? In "developed" parts of the world nearly everyone commands energy slaves (Bucky Fuller's term), while barely noticing them.
Yes, such is technological progress - I type this and it instantly becomes available to read on dozens of screens around the planet. Great kings would have to send runners just to deliver a message 100 km away, and conversation with overseas kingdoms required months round trip for an answer...
What hasn't changed since those days is that a select few command people to do their bidding, not just machines.
The availability of "energy slaves" such as pickup trucks to haul your stuff, is a great distribution of power and wealth to the common people who have access. What keeps those people "common" is that while half of them might be able to afford the fanciest pickup truck on the market, less than 5% of them can afford house staff to do domestic chores - although it has become quite fashionable for "commoners" to afford lawn care to flex to their neighbors how they can have illegal immigrants sweat in their yard for them.
A very true comment heard from a British expat in Africa: "one servant is worth a whole kitchen full of mod-con appliances."
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]