The 4-day work week is long overdue. Keynes promised us a 15-hour work week thanks to productivity gains, but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking. Lots of people are overworked and underpaid.
I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.
And I bet he was quite right, but there is an important nuance: it's true for the 1940s level of consumption. If you reduce your level of consumption to 1940s level, you could easily manage to have 15-hour week.
> but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking
You seem to gravely underestimate the huge gap in economic value between what people were consuming in Keynes' times and what they consume now. The productivity gains are embodied in goods in services like Uber, Amazon, Netflix, computers and stuff, computerized cars.
The newly built 1940s-level goods and services would cost a fraction of price.
It's probably a combination. Of course our standard of living has gone up, but so has wealth inequality.
And in a way, we're actually working more. Back in the 70s, a single income was enough to maintain a family with a house and kids and everything. These days, it's common for both parents to work, and yet we're not all twice as rich. Most of that extra money is eaten up by higher housing costs, which often depend on what people can afford to pay for the house they need, and with double income, we can afford to pay twice as much, so housing prices have gone through the roof.
I suspect we shouldn't have gone from one parent working fulltime to two parents working fulltime, but to two parents working part time. I've got a feeling we may have accidentally ruined this for ourselves.
> These days, it's common for both parents to work, and yet we're not all twice as rich. Most of that extra money is eaten up by higher housing costs
What was the average home size in 1970? What is the average home size today? Internet says that median house size in US went from 500sq feet to 907 sq feet. So yes, the consumption standards had risen significantly.
> These days, it's common for both parents to work
Can't say for US, but in EU these days it's common for parents to travel. It's common for parents to go on a massage or SPA on the weekends. It's common for parents to do sport, buy a bicycle etc. And I'm talking about regular blue collar peps.
My parents didn't do all that. They lived a much more humble life than most parents today. Also my mother did a shitload of manual work, she washed all the clothes manually, she did cleaning mostly manually, she fixed clothes with her own hands manually. How many times in the past ten years had you fixed your clothes with sewing?
So this "one parent was working" meant basically "another parent is doing a shitload of manual labor at home (because absent/more expensive goods and services) and they overall live a pretty humble life by today standards even adjusted for better services".
If you reduce your living standards to 1970s median, you can easily rise your kids with a single working parent. But neither you, nor your spouse and kids will like that standards of living.
That's true. Well, we also did sports and had bikes in the 1970s, but I think people definitely have more luxurious vacations than we used to. Back then, my family always went camping for three weeks in a tent. These days, we go on much more expensive vacations abroad. More people go by plane, too.
> What was the average home size in 1970? What is the average home size today?
The home I grew up in was larger than the house I raise my kids in. Lots of older houses weren't all that small, and plenty of new ones aren't that big, but they all got a lot more expensive.
> How many times in the past ten years had you fixed your clothes with sewing?
I always want to, but never get around to it. This lack of repair has definitely contributed to the disposability of our stuff.
> So this "one parent was working" meant basically "another parent is doing a shitload of manual labor at home
But we still have chores at home. Only now we have to do them outside working hours. Although I do quite a bit on my free wednesdays.
> If you reduce your living standards to 1970s median, you can easily rise your kids with a single working parent.
I have friends who do. But the thing they mostly cut their expenses on is still their house: they live in an old, poorly insulated house in the middle of nowhere that still needs a lot of work.
I think the feeling of not being twice as rich despite twice the income is a function of job insecurity and an awareness as we age that everything is a sham/game, no one knows anything, and everything could be taken away at any moment.
When you know for sure that you will have a job tomorrow, you’re more likely to sit back, reflect on, and savor your wealth.
On the other hand, knowing that people like you are getting fired at-will, unconscious fear sets in that the next time the music stops, you’ll be the one without a seat.
This feeling of not being able to control one’s destiny is what prevents us from enjoying our money sitting in the bank.
Even in tech, in Germany a 15h work week, i.e., a 36%-40% part time job’s salary would cover taxes, rent and rent utilities, and basic health insurance. No food, clothing whatsoever.
I just ran into something weird with my taxes that looks like I could cut my income by 25% and barely lose any money, because it's all taxes.
I know it doesn't make sense. I know how marginal tax rates work. And yet when the tax service estimates my income for 2024 at € 130k, they expect me to pay 50k in taxes, but if my accountant lowers the estimate to $100k, I'd only have to pay 22k. I have no clue how that works, but it looks to me like I should switch to a 3-day work week or take 3 months vacation.
How's the fraction of income devoted to housing in that calculation? A lot of people would love to go back to 1940s house prices, but of course you simply can't do that.
> A lot of people would love to go back to 1940s house prices
In USA? Adjusted for inflation, you had pretty flat housing prices until mid 90s, where the housing bubble started. And even now and on peak of the housing bubble of 2008 the house will cost you 250% the cost of 1940s house (or 180% of the 1950s which is more fair comparison since it was after the war) which is not that bad.
4-day work week with same salary means that 20% productivity increase is required just to compensate, which is quite big.
At the moment we need growth fuelled by productivity gains at constant hours, or even increased hours, not a reduction of working hours, which goes in the opposite direction and, again feels like Europe is giving up.
Keynes did not "predicted" that based on continued increased productivity, not because of any rights to it.
Unfortunately productivity gains have largely stalled for years: growth is very weak while population keeps increasing.
> but those productivity gains have mostly been eaten up by excessive corporate profit-taking.
I'd say there were mostly eaten by increased standards of living. Compare median global standard of living in Keyens times (say 100 years ago) and today. The difference is astounding, and we even work less for it than we did - just not "15 hours workweek" less.
I tell every prospective employer that I work 4*8. Only once over the past 24 years has this been an insurmountable obstacle for an employer.
Thought I suppose that this might be a lot harder in more conservative exploitative cultures. Working 4.5 days, with one free day per two weeks, is incredibly common in Netherland. Part time is not uncommon.
Germany isn't 45 German companies that will try it.
There's no labor shortage in Germany, what there is, are proper salaries.
One example are childcare workers in Kindergartens (Kita). Salaries are low and regulated, so nobody wants to do it. Increase the salary and you will have many workers lining up.
Germany has managed to grow for decades, from absolute destruction post WW2 without raises that accompany that amount of growth.
Tech workers in Germany are paid peanuts in comparison to Americans.
The situation isn't worse because some American companies offer good salaries, pushing the market up.
Do not increase the salary of tech workers in Germany. We are already making more of our fair share. More than double or triple the amount of money that a person working way harder makes.
Agreed. However, since we don't have the power to set the salary of childcare workers, we will just ensure we don't pay you as much as your colleagues in the US, UK or Switzerland.
Agreed. However, since I don't like being underpayed, I will pack my things and move to Switzerland after having received my taxpayer-funded education.
I assume you feel underpaid only when you look at Swiss salaries form German CoL perspective. But I assume Swiss salaries are not high when you're also paying Swiss CoL, then they're just regular salaries.
I'm from Vienna - CoL compared to salaries here is pretty high but managable with social housing.
It's just that my friend working for a subsidiary of my employer in Zürich makes 3x as much, gets to keep a lot more of that money due to the significantly lower tax burden and then after that her CoL is ~2-2.5x what it is here.
Additionally, her salary is paid in CHF which is deflationary while I get my money in Eurozone Funbucks. As you might know, Austria has been a European inflation leader in the last 1-2 years (~10%).
Compared to the Swiss we are completely and utterly underpaid. For equivalent work and similar living conditions she's left with almost double the money at the end of the year. Note: We both do not live lavishly by any means.
Berlin, Munich and other big cities, where most of the tech jobs are, have had massive inflation over the last few years. There is a huge gap in terms of rents and mortgages between those who bought or signed a rental contract prior to 2021 and now. Meanwhile the strong CHF has led to Swiss inflation being somewhat lower. Kurzgesagt: German CoL is catching up but salaries remain behind.
If anyone working in tech in Germany is feeling overpaid, I would recommend they get out of their current rental contract or mortgage and get a new one at current rates. Or simply forego their inheritance.
Saving for retirement in Germany as a middle-class employee is tremendously hard.
I feel like the discourse on worker rights / work-life balance and demographic issues are more decoupled than they should be. Low birth-rates are provably related to the ability of parents to spend time with their children.
This combined with other initiatives might help Europe recover from the serious imminent demographic collapse.
> Low birth-rates are provably related to the ability of parents to spend time with their children.
I'm constantly seeing this idea, and if anything, it's the opposite of truth. Poverty is always breeding much better than the middle class, and the fertility rates always fall when standards of living rise.
> ability of parents to spend time with their childre
Children are an opportunity cost. When parents have a free time, it's a choice between self-realization and spending time with a kid. Spending on yourselves or spending on a kid etc. When you are dirt poor or rich there is no such choice, you'll either have no resources to spend anyway or have enough resources to not bother.
I live in Berlin and surrounded by middle class people and nearly non have children. Give them one more day and they will go to Kitkat/hiking one more day a week. That's it.
> [...] it's the opposite of truth. Poverty is always breeding much better than the middle class
I'm constantly seeing this idea, and if anything, it misses the forest for the trees. Fertility rates fall when standards of living rise - up to a specific point. After that point, fertility rises to sustainable levels again. The research is quite clear on this.
> [...] it's a choice between self-realization and spending time with a kid
And this is exactly my theory on why the "slope" of childlessness occurs.
Rising towards the middle class means that all lesser needs are fulfilled and now only self-actualization remains unmet. The cruel joke is that people then forsake having children in favor of self-realization while someone a with more resources would not feel the need to make this compromise.
So in a sense, the most deprived people don't care and still have children despite the challenges (lower class), the less deprived people forsake children in order to meet their highest-order needs (middle class) and the mostly undeprived do not have to make any trade-offs like that and again have children. (upper class)
I live in Vienna, an arguably more family friendly city, and most middle class people around me (aged ~30-40) do have babies at home - esp. those working in relaxed environments like public sector. If you give people the resources, flexibility and time to have children without worrying, they will indeed have more children (in the long run).
Most of the expenses around kids revolve around the space they need. Bigger apartment, bigger car, more food are the bare necessities. Then come the expenses for additional flight tickets for vacations, bigger or more hotel rooms, needing to go on vacation during high season or not at all, extra-curricular activities, and so on. One kid can easily double your expenses from a couple's level.
Sounds good to me. Endgame: maybe have enough time for work AND leisure reading AND cooking AND household chores AND exercise AND volunteering AND civic involvement AND ... well, the list goes on. Also kids!
People working 40+ hours a week just robotically wall off entire areas of ways to spend their time rewardingly. My 0,02€.
I find it interesting when employees ask for this without reducing pay. They then think it’s a 20% reduction as it’s 20% less work. But then you factor the overhead including normal overhead like benefits, HR, office space and additional overhead like management (a manager can only many so many people so now we need two managers for a group) and your at around a 40% reduction in pay to support one less day of output.
- The employer pays salaries based on negotiation, not on merit or some scientific measurement. An employee is allowed to do the same.
- Unless the employee is privy to all the details and math pertaining this overhead and is the one who asked for this overhead, then it's appropriate that the employee doesn't care about the overhead at all.
- There is also overhead in the employees side that is not taken into account by the employer. Commuting to that "office space" also spends the employee's time and money, for example.
- A 20% reduction of work time never amounts to a 20% reduction of productivity or work output, unless the work consists solely of sitting in a chair (and that's not counting bathroom breaks).
> - A 20% reduction of work time never amounts to a 20% reduction of productivity or work output, unless the work consists solely of sitting in a chair (and that's not counting bathroom breaks).
I don't understand what you're saying here. If I work 20% less then that's 20% less work that I get done. I don't sit in a chair for work.
Edit: An example. If it takes me 5 days to hang siding on a house, and I don't work one of those days, that's 20% less I didn't work and about 20% less of the work that got done.
Lets say you have enough spare time and energy to make a jig, a trolley, an improved tool of some kind that helps you hang siding. For the time you spend making it you are behind on your general average siding panels per day. Once you finish your tool you will surpass your average. This is one of many many non-linear holes in your theory.
You may say 'but you can't guarantee I will make a jig, a trolley or an improved tool', at which point I give up trying to argue with someone on the internet and feel slightly deflated that the point was missed
Iirc, there are several of studies that imply that if you have the same developer working 40 vs 32 hours, the difference in output is often negligible, since not all hours worked are the same in terms of effectiveness.
You might not be aware of that effect, since you deny it explicitly when it comes to your own work, but you might view it in a different light if you turn it around:
Would you produce twice as much if you were to work 80 hours? Probably not, right? You'd maybe produce about 1.5 times as much, and the quality of your work would suffer greatly, leading to more work in the future.
The same effect might work in the other direction, up to a certain point.
The 40 hour work week is not god-given, in fact it has been reduced quite a number of times in the past (mostly due to unions, like most working condition improvemens). So I can not understand why so many people act as if it were set in stone.
Sure but even without factoring in additional factors like unions and labour laws that is solely a question of negotiating a deal between an employer and an employee.
Getting a significant raise is not unheard of, in particular when switching jobs, and a 4 day work week is basically the same.
Basic negotiation strategy suggest that "labour shortage" is the right time to ask for this.
Some companies have extremely fat margins and regular employees may very well feel that some of that money is better spent on their salaries than dividends, C-suite compensation or stock buybacks.
If this becomes a common thing in the US I'd be worried about stoking the flames of class warfare between white collar and blue collar workers. Many of those blue collar jobs (public facing especially) cannot be compressed into a 4 day work week. Lots of blue collar workers are already furious about things like working from home, 'email jobs', flexible schedules, etc. On top of that many white collar workers already enjoy an unofficial 4 day work week with offices being ghost towns on Friday afternoons. So are we talking about realistically a 3 day work week with an extra 'will respond to e-mail emergencies' on the 4th day?
In reality though, this is only because they have a false sense of class association.
Both blue collar and white collar workers are part of the working class. This would actually benefit blue collar workers because of that. But there are always attempts to blur the lines with expressions like "laptop class" etc.
Blue collar people were always worse off than white collar. Historically, they didn't rebel, but just tried to get their kids the best education they could, so that the next generation could have an easier life as a part of the white collar class.
Blue collar workers might think that the WFH or flex time are good benefits, which they don't have, and that their own pay should be adjusted accordingly.
I've been working a 4-day week for well over a decade (also because I've got kids, but I did this well before I had kids), and I strongly recommend it for everybody.