Work time reduction via a 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers' well-being
Wen Fan, Juliet Schor, Orla Kelly and Guolin Gu studied how an organisation-wide four-day week with no cut in pay affects worker well-being. Participating organisations first reorganised their work and then ran a six-month trial, with surveys taken before and after in organisations across six countries. They report improvements in burnout and job satisfaction, a pattern not seen in the comparison companies, and conclude that income-preserving four-day weeks can be an effective organisational intervention for well-being.
Wen Fan, Juliet Schor, Orla Kelly and Guolin Gu studied how an organisation-wide four-day week with no cut in pay affects worker well-being. Participating organisations first reorganised their work and then ran a six-month trial, with surveys taken before and after in organisations across six countries. They report improvements in burnout and job satisfaction, a pattern not seen in the comparison companies, and conclude that income-preserving four-day weeks can be an effective organisational intervention for well-being.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-27 via IDEAS/RePEc.
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Fan, W., Schor, J. B., Kelly, O., & Gu, G. (2025). Work time reduction via a 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers' well-being. Nature Human Behaviour, 9(10), 2153-2168. doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02259-6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02259-6