There was a time when the laboring man worked 14 plus hours a day under grueling, often unsafe conditions. He or she had no choice if they expected to survive.
Today after 100 years of the industrial revolution we should be working less than ever. After all, that was the point of the industrial age - machinery to make every day tasks easier or obsolete, streamlining for efficiency, organizing for productivity.
Yet somehow we've managed to end up working longer hours than we have in decades. Today, the United States leads the pack of industrialized countries weighing in at over 42 hours in an average work week. Many people in the United States and around the world work far longer than that with almost no down time. What happened?
A demand for shorter work weeks is not new. Since the 1930s when President Herbert Hoover attempted to pass legislation limiting the official work week to 30 hours, there has been a growing movement to take back our lives.
These days, it comes in the form of a four day work week - and the movement can be found all over the modern world. Local governments and communities everywhere are performing experiments with the so called 4/10 work week - 4 days a week, 10 hours a day. This gives people more time at the end of the week to spend with themselves.
And according to modern science - at significant benefit. Not only do we save energy by shutting down an extra day every week, we also enjoy significant mental and physical health benefits. This goes on to further enhance worker productivity.
Thus, after widespread implementation of the 4/10 work week, we might find there is no need for extra daily hours.. only a resulting increase in hourly pay to match our new-found performance.
See more about working time from Wikipedia...
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