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Work time reduction via a 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers’ well-being

Nature Human Behaviour (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Time spent on the job is a fundamental aspect of working conditions that influences many facets of individuals’ lives. Here we study how an organization-wide 4-day workweek intervention—with no reduction in pay—affects workers’ well-being. Organizations undergo pre-trial work reorganization to improve efficiency and collaboration, followed by a 6-month trial. Analysis of pre- and post-trial data from 2,896 employees across 141 organizations in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA shows improvements in burnout, job satisfaction, mental health and physical health—a pattern not observed in 12 control companies. Both company-level and individual-level reductions in hours are correlated with well-being gains, with larger individual-level (but not company-level) reductions associated with greater improvements in well-being. Three key factors mediate the relationship: improved self-reported work ability, reduced sleep problems and decreased fatigue. The results indicate that income-preserving 4-day workweeks are an effective organizational intervention for enhancing workers’ well-being.

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Fig. 1: Conceptual model.
Fig. 2: Distribution of hours worked per week: baseline and endpoint.
Fig. 3: Average marginal effects of reductions in work hours: before and after adding mediators.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are currently not publicly available due to privacy considerations. Many of the participating organisations are identifiable through public announcements about their 4-day workweek trials, which increases the risk of identification. Researchers interested in working with these datasets should contact the corresponding authors directly (W.F. and J.B.S.). As outlined in the data management plans of the grant proposals that supported this research, we will make the data publicly available by 2027, after carefully reviewing and managing the data to determine which variables can be shared, and the data will be held in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).

Code availability

Analysis scripts are available via OSF at https://osf.io/kqwhz.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the US National Science Foundation (grant no. 2241840), the Russell Sage Foundation (grant no. 2205-38631) and Boston College Ignite Grant, all awarded to J.B.S. and W.F. The Irish trial was supported by Forsa trade union. The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. We thank T. Bezdenezhnykh, N. Bridson Hubbard, P. Moen, A. Campbell and Y. Chu, as well as our NGO partners C. Lockhart and A. Barnes, J. O’Connor, A. Soojung-Kim Pang, D. Whelehan, W. Stronge, K. Lewis and all the members of the 4 Day Week Global, Four Day Week Campaign UK and Autonomy teams.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA

    Wen Fan, Juliet B. Schor & Guolin Gu

  2. School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Orla Kelly

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Contributions

W.F., J.B.S. and O.K. conceived the study, designed the survey instrument and coordinated the study. W.F. and J.B.S. recruited control companies. G.G. contributed to survey development, programmed and fielded the survey, and performed the analysis. W.F., J.B.S. and O.K. supervised the analysis and wrote the paper. G.G. commented on the paper. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wen Fan or Juliet B. Schor.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests. We are independent researchers invited by 4DWG to collect and analyse data. We have no financial or legal connections or agreements with 4DWG. 4DWG has no influence over the design, results or outputs of our research.

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Nature Human Behaviour thanks Anthony Lepinteur, Kaitlin Woolley and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Fan, W., Schor, J.B., Kelly, O. et al. Work time reduction via a 4-day workweek finds improvements in workers’ well-being. Nat Hum Behav (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02259-6

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