Four Days a Week

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, American workers struggled to keep up with the competing demands of paid employment and unpaid labor at home. Unlike other wealthy nations, including France and Germany, that have reduced working hours since the 1950s while boosting productivity, the United States remains stuck in a dangerously outdated work mode, Schor notes. 

There aren’t enough hours in the day — or week — to combine job work and household work.Juliet B. Schor

The United States’ longstanding “ideal worker norm” rewards those who demonstrate apparent endless devotion to work, regardless of personal cost. Between 1989 and 2016, American adults added an average of 100 hours to their workweeks. Hours spent on, for example, child care, elder care, and household maintenance — all of which disproportionately fall on women — have not declined. In fact, Schor states, hours spent engaging in child care have more than doubled since the mid-1970s. Many families work the equivalent of two full-time jobs between paid and unpaid responsibilities.