Days of Work over a Half Century: The Rise of the Four-Day Workweek

Abstract

The authors examine work patterns in the United States from 1973 to 2018, with the novel focus on days per week, using intermittent CPS samples and one ATUS sample. Among full-time workers, the incidence of four-day workweeks tripled, adding 7 million four-day workers. Similar growth occurred in the Netherlands, Germany, and South Korea. The rise was not due to changes in demographics or industrial structure. Such schedules are more common among those who are 1) less educated, 2) younger, 3) white non-Hispanic, 4) men, 5) natives, 6) people with young children, 7) non-unionized, 8) police and firefighters, 9) health care workers, and 10) restaurant workers. Based on an equilibrium model, the authors show that the increase in four-day workweeks results more from workers’ preferences and/or their daily fixed costs of working than production costs. The wage penalty for a four-day workweek is greater when such work is more prevalent, and the penalty has diminished over time.