The Science of the Four-Day Work Week

by NICOLE WESTMAN

1:26: HENRY FORD SHOCKS INDUSTRY leaders around the world when he announces a five-day workweek for his Ford employees. “Just as the eight-hour day opened our way to prosperity in America, so the five-day workweek will open our way to still greater prosperity,” he writes, “it is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege.” At the time, unions and workers’ advocates had been jostling for reduced working hours for decades, as part of efforts to improve working conditions. However, Ford probably wasn’t thinking about his employee’s well-being when he made the switch, says John Pencavel, senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. “He was more concerned, my guess, with preventing a possible unionisation,” and…

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Popular Science Australia (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2019

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