During the month of February, most students and workers in the United States have two three-day weekends in a row because of Lincoln’s Birthday and Presidents Day. Students this month were very happy with the three-day weekends. For example, Sydney Fried (11) thought that “the three-day weekend gave [her] the time to relax and spend time with my family.” Because of the three-day weekends, students and workers only had to be in their working environment for four-days. There are multiple benefits to having a four-day workweek, and many countries are working to implement a four-day workweek for their workers and students.

One benefit of a four-day workweek is increased productivity. Stanford University conducted a study that examined the relationship and productivity and workers, and it showed that workers who work more than average are less productive than workers who work average working hours. In addition, Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand based company that focuses on estate planning, manages a study that gave its workers a four-day workweek, and they found that workers maintained the same productivity level, improved other areas of their lives, such as job satisfaction, teamwork, and life/work balance, and decreased their levels of stress from 45% to 35%.

Another benefit is a more equal work environment. Because of childcare responsibilities, it is difficult for women to work as much as men. With a four-day workweek, women have less time in the work setting and can spend more time at home. Thus, this would lead to women taking care of child care responsibilities while also being at work. In addition, a four-day workweek promotes better employee engagement. A four-day workweek lessens the chance that workers will take a day off of work due to stress or other responsibilities. For example, in Sweden, they conducted a trial study with a shorter work week and found that the workers had better health, mental wellbeing, and greater engagement. 

Also, a shorter workweek would lessen the environmental impact companies have on nature. Countries with a four-day work week have a smaller carbon footprint. For instance, in the US, a study taking place in Utah that studied the impacts of a four-day workweek displayed that the company saved around $1.8 million in energy cost and 6,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions (changerecruitmentgroup.com).

Because of COVID-19, mental health problems and stress levels are increasing exponentially. Since students spend their day on a computer screen for a large portion of the day and many jobs are still at home, the work environment that society was accustomed to is gone and replaced by a mainly online model. Thus, our work and school days, which used to be filled with social interaction, are all on a screen leading to rising levels of loneliness and suicide. Multiple surveys that have been done indicate that a four-day workweek will lead to less stress and the chance of burnout for the workers and students (nbcnews.com). From the beginning of the industrial age to now, work hours consistently decreased because of worker strikes and unions. With each decrease in the amount of time worked, the standard of living has increased. Thus, maybe more countries should start implementing a four-day workweek to have a happier and healthier population of workers.