There’s no magic in a 4-day workweek 

The idea of a four-day workweek is catching attention. Young workers in particular see it as the wave of the future, while others worry it will undermine America prosperity.

Economists have pondered the viability of a four-day workweek since research by Janice Hedges in 1971. Recently, though, a magical idea has come to the fore: Let employees work one fewer day per week at the same hours per day and same pay, and they will accomplish just as much as in a standard five-day workweek.

All the fuss prompted us to ask several hundred American business executives and several thousand American workers some pertinent questions. What we uncovered is mundane, not magical. In the language of “Harry Potter,” there is support for a “muggle” version of the four-day workweek — but not for a magical one.

In October, we asked 602 senior managers across the U.S. whether their firms offer a four-day workweek to any full-time employees, and 20 percent said yes. For those who said yes, we also asked what share of their full-time employees work a four-day week — on average, 25 percent. So about 5 percent of full-time American employees currently work a four-day week. 

Is the U.S. on the cusp of a big shift to four-day workweeks? No. Of the 482 managers at firms that don’t currently offer four-day workweeks, two-thirds said there is no chance their firms will offer them by the end of 2024. The other one-third say the chances are only 16 percent, on average. 

In practice, there are several versions of the four-day workweek. One involves fewer but longer workdays, with no change in weekly hours. Another cuts the number of workdays without changing the length of each workday, but recognizes that fewer hours means less output and thus lower pay. Yet another version lets employees work from home on Fridays (or Mondays) but work onsite the other four days. 

We think of these variants as “muggle” versions of the four-day workweek, because they recognize the reality that output and pay are roughly proportional to time spent working.

Then there is the magical version: Let full-time employees work eight hours a day, four days a week rather than five — with no reduction in output or pay.

Keep an open mind, you say?

Consider some evidence. We asked managers at firms that currently allow four-day workweeks how many hours their full-time employees put into their jobs on those four days. The average is 9.5 hours. Just 22 percent of managers said their full-time, four-day workweek employees put in eight or fewer hours on their workdays. More than 75 percent of managers told us that some or all of their employees on a four-day workweek are expected to be available for work on “off days.”

In short, managers don’t see the magic.

But even with no magic, four-day workweeks can be beneficial. If your daily commute is 30 minutes each way, muggle versions of the four-day workweek save one hour a week. This also saves on the money costs of commuting, not to mention the aggravations of traffic jams and public transit. 

To assess these benefits, we turned to our Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, which samples thousands of American workers each month. In October, we asked survey participants who usually work five days a week whether they would prefer to work the same weekly hours over four days. Nearly 60 percent said yes. They also said shifting to a four-day workweek was worth as much, on average, as a 4 percent pay hike. 

Employers can also benefit from muggle versions of the four-day workweek. For example, they can offer smaller pay raises in exchange for less commuting, perhaps by letting employees work from home one day a week. This arrangement also reduces office floorspace requirements, lowering overhead costs.

Sadly, we must live in the real world, not the world of wizards. It’s time to set aside the distractions of magical four-day workweek proposals. Happily, even realistic four-day workweek schedules can benefit both employees and their employers. 

Jose Maria Barrero is assistant professor of finance at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México Business School. Steven J. Davis is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. This piece draws on research with Nick Bloom, Kevin Foster, Brent Meyer and Emil Mihaylov.