Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Iceland embraced a shorter work week. Here’s how it turned out
Work-life balance generally means the amount of time you spend doing
your job compared with the amount of time you spend with your family or for
yourself. The shorter the time you work, the higher the well-being usually will
be. Instead of working 40 hours a week in five days, working 35 hours might
give you another weekend day or a shorter work hour each day. Whichever the workstyle
might be, workers who were given shorter work hours responded positively about their
work-life balance. Iceland is a Nordic island country with a population of
400,000 people. Though the size of the economy is small, its GDP per capita is
ranked 8th in the world, meaning Iceland’s productivity is very
high. They tried to find out if they could maintain or improve productivity in shorter
work hours. Researchers found there was no decline in productivity or economic growth
but a significant improvement in workers’ well-being. Most people used to work
six days a week and now they work five days. Why not four days?
Read the article and learn how reduced work hours could affect
productivity and the economy.
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