The Dutch are Working Four Days a Week
Famously, a hundred years ago Keynes predicted that by now people would be working just fifteen hours a week. That hasn’t quite happened, but the Dutch are already down to four-day weeks.
And this isn’t because bad actors are gaming the system or because the government is somehow stopping people from working more. Rather, it’s the result of people increasingly choosing to work part-time.
Interestingly, this is one of the issues where libertarians and progress studies people, who usually get along well, would disagree. Libertarians would say that if you can afford it, by all means, work just one day a week. Progress studies people would point out that GDP growth decreased by, say, 1% over 100 years will leave people in the resulting economy almost three times poorer.
Anyway, the Netherlands lead in part-time jobs, because it has enacted part-time-friendly policies in the past. Was that a mistake? Should governments instead be trying to make the creation of part-time jobs more difficult?
Also keep in mind that not all jobs are created equal. Those working on increasing the productivity (scientists etc.) are, by working more, increasing the exponent of the exponential growth curve. By contrast, assembly-line workers only increase its base. Is that an argument for sector-based policies? Discourage part-time work in science, but make it easier for manual jobs?
> And this isn’t because bad actors are gaming the system or because the government is somehow stopping people from working more. Rather, it’s the result of people increasingly choosing to work part-time.
When I got a job (as a hybrid PhD student/programmer, though a PhD student is considered a job in the Netherlands anyway) at TU Delft, the official full-time contract was for 32 hours/week (if memory serves). And there were options to bump the commitment a couple of steps up to 40 hours/week in exchange for extra vacation days.
It appears that the 4-day workweek is very much official in the Netherlands. :)