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Can the US Embrace a Four-Day Workweek?

Three Wharton experts don’t hold out hope for change

Credit: Marissa Grootes on Unsplash
Angie Basiouny
Wed, 10/05/2022 - 12:01
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When Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell first came to the U.S. from England in the 1990s, he was struck by the dogged American work ethic.

“It was a culture that was much more organized around work than in the UK,” he recalls. “When I was growing up, there wasn’t quite the same heroism about long hours.” He adds that workaholics in Britain were regarded as people who needed to get their priorities in order.

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“Work gives us a sense of meaning and accomplishment, and more of our identity is tied to work,” Bidwell says. “But it also crowds out a lot of other things we’d like to be doing.”

That desire to do other things is why more than 3,300 employees across 70 companies in the UK are participating in a pilot program to work four days a week in exchange for the same productivity and pay. Launched in June 2022, the six-month experiment led by the nonprofit 4 Day Week Global relies on previous research that finds employees are happier, healthier, and more efficient with reduced working hours.

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