Collaborative Research: Assessing Impacts of a Four-Day Workweek

A four-day, 32-hour workweek with no reduction in pay is an emerging workplace innovation. This project investigates potential benefits of a four-day workweek for employees, organizations, and the environment. The study investigates how a four-day workweek shapes workers’ mental and physical health, levels of satisfaction, and behavior, including household carbon use. Reducing household carbon use is one potential strategy to mitigate human effects on the changing climate. The research also considers how a four-day workweek might benefit companies by investigating company revenue, employee absenteeism, and worker turnover. The four-day week may be an important contributor to national well-being and prosperity.The project is the first known major scientific investigation of a four-day workweek with a robust research design. Investigators partner with 4 Day Week Global, a non-profit that organizes six-month trials for institutions to adopt a four-day workweek. Researchers use a matched pair case-control design with 20 U.S. companies who trial the four-day workweek, plus 20 control companies. The project combines surveys, interviews, and administrative data. The surveys take place across four waves: trial baseline, mid-point, trial end, and six months from trial end, with a survey population of between 1000 and 2000. Interviews are conducted twice each with 40 employees or managers and 10 CEOs. The study investigates how a four-day workweek shapes workers’ stress and burnout, mental and physical health, exercise, sleep, life and time-use satisfaction, work-life conflict, and household carbon use. An intersectional approach enables the study of potentially disparate effects of the four-day week on workers by class, life stage, and demographic characteristics. The cross-company mixed-methods design permits comparative analysis across firms, occupations, and industries, thereby contributing to understanding of workplace flexibility and organizational change. Investigating how workplace policies shape carbon emissions may also illuminate how paid work could help to mitigate climate change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.