40-Hour Workweek Debate

honestly i think the problem here is the standard 40 work week monopolizing societies time. in the last 50 years worker productivity has shot up but the hours worked have stayed the same. we have multiple studies showing greater productivity with shorter work days or shorter work weeks but we insist on keeping 40 hour 5 day weeks.If people had more time outside of work they could do this outside of work.

Our collective productivity has increased almost 3x since 1950. That 40 hr/week could be 13 for everyone but people choose not to structure their lives that way.

Historically, working hours are decreased with increase of productivity. 10-16 hours working days 6 days a week was common just few centuries ago.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day

As long as there are marginal gains to be made from working an extra hour I don't see this changing. Imagine if one country decided to change from a 40 hour work week to a 20 hour work week. If this decreases their GDP from producing less output, then they become economically weaker, their standard of living in terms of purchasing power is diminished, and the tax base is decreased. I think the biggest reason we don't see more leisure time is the same reason wild animals don't s

The fact that in some countries they haven't reduced the amount of work hours, despite becoming richer, says a lot to me.

Well, so my thinking is along these lines. What we now call "full-time" - 40 hours a week - is not a law of nature. It's a social construct. In the beginning of the industrial revolution everybody worked 12 hours a day without the weekend. Labor movement (or was it Henry Ford? I don't know) pushed for shorter working week. It didn't seem to destroy the economy. So I don't see why we can't make it even shorter. And HN crowd, as indeed relatively well off, can le

Working fewer hours != A world that's functioning 80% of time

Think about it on an individual level. Suppose the economy is such that there's only demand for 21 hours/week worth of your labour. Would you rather a) work 21 hours/week b) work 40 hours/week, badly? Because that's what choosing to lower productivity amounts to.

Huh? 40 hr work weeks are a recent thing, many people in history worked 12 hr days 6 days a week. Technology and social progress definitely leads to fewer work hours.

Higher worker productivity naturally leads to shortened hours? No wonder we've all got 15 hour workweeks now.