What happened to the four day work week?

Question

Back in the 70's it was widely believed that technological advancements would someday result in Americans working a four day work week and, simultaneously, enjoying a significantly higher standard of living. What changed that equation?

Answer 1

They fed us that line back in the 60s and 70s in England as well.
What happened was that companies made bigger and bigger profits while the workers carried on working almost just as hard. I suppose we do have an extra week holiday per year and some offices work 1-5 less hours per week.

However the leisure time has all gone to the unemployed who have no money to enjoy it, while the workers have money,but no time to spend it on leisure! Madness !

Answer 2

What happen is that in the US wages did not increase as much as expected because the baby boomer and women entered the work force and then immigrants.
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/11/04/has-middle-americas-wages-stagnated/
It is a somewhat circular process, If we worked less it would decrease the supply of labor and wages would increase. and although we would produce less, labor would capture more of the gains from increased productivity. A lot of the extra low skill jobs are performing household services doing things we use to do for ourselves. Europeans had a different pattern. After WWII they worked more hours than Americans, but since 1970 they started to work less and now work about 10% fewer hours a year.

Answer 3

Well two things. You are right that technology means that you can produce more for any given unit of work.

So two things. One, we have produced more, just that we have decided collectively through the labor market, that we, on average, prefer to use that higher productivity to gain higher wages instead of more leisure time. We could have more leisure, but we would make less then we do now. The market has determined that workers on average desire pay over time off, and therefor are more enticed to work for a company by being offered a higher wage then more vacation time.

Second, we HAVE increased our lisure a signifigant amount. We have just used most of it up in retirement instead of spreading it across our workign lives. The lfe expectancy is much longer then in was decades ago, yet we dont retire any later. One of the reasons for the lopsided distribution of liesure time to the end of our lives is likely because our government pension systems, and the tax incentivised retirment plane, are designed to only take effect once you hit 65 (or 62, or 70 with differnt payouts). So with this restriction/incentive in place, it makes a lot more sence to work more earlier and leass later in order to maximize the total amount of earnings for a given amount of work. In the absence of these programs and non market institutions, I would guess that we would desire more vacation time through the market and less retirment time.

Answer 4

We nevertheless ought to. Our familiar of residing is plenty greater than the 70s. cut back your paintings decrease back to 4 days, take a 20% pay cut back, and you're able to nevertheless have a extra robust std of residing than interior the 70s.

Answer 5

I disagree with Gloria. The answer is Globalization!!

Answer 6

Globalization! I am just guessing of course.
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