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HOW’S ICELAND’S 4-DAY WORK WEEK WORKING? ‘INCREDIBLY WELL,’
STUDY SAYS  
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Brett Wilkins
October 25, 2024
Common Dreams
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_ "The Iceland story offers a very different vision to countries
across Europe that are grappling with low productivity but trying the
same old failed methods," said one researcher. _

Icelandic football fans react while watching their national football
team play during the FIFA World Cup 2018 qualification football match
against Kosovo in Reykjavik, Iceland on October 9, 2017. , Halldor
Kolbeins/AFP via Getty Images

 

Iceland's economy grew more than all but one other rich European
nation and its workers reported higher well-being, lower stress, and
better work-life balance after the country reduced its standard work
week from 40 to 36 hours, research published Friday affirmed.

The study
[[link removed]]—released
by a pair of think tanks, London-based Autonomy Institute and Alda
(Association for Sustainability and Democracy) of Reykjavík,
Iceland—"offers new insight into the program of working-time
reduction that has taken place in Iceland, following successful
public sector trials
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the country."

"After successful pilot schemes in the Icelandic national government
and Reykjavík City Council between 2015 and 2019 which found
improvements to employee well-being as well as productivity, historic
labor agreements between Icelandic trade unions and employers
'embedded' the right to shorter hours for hundreds of thousands of
workers," study authors Guðmundur Haraldsson, Jack Kellam, and Rowan
Trickett noted.

How did Iceland’s 4-day week turn out?

Incredibly well, as it happens.

“In 2023, Iceland’s economy expanded by 5%, a growth rate second
only to Malta among rich European economies.”

“Icelands low unemployment rate… stood at 3.4% last year just over
half the average for… pic.twitter.com/qxFaqGR3Go
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— 4 Day Week Campaign (@4Day_Week) October 25, 2024
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The new report analyzed the results of studies conducted by the Social
Science Research Institute at the University of Iceland, the Icelandic
Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor, and Occupational Safety and
Health Administration "to understand job patterns,
work environment, and the reasons why individuals left paid
employment" in 2021 and 2022.

Key findings include:

* 62% of people working reduced hours reported being more satisfied
with their schedule;
* 97% of workers thought that shorter working hours had made it
easier to balance work with their private life, or at least kept the
balance the same as before (with more than half, 52%, thinking it had
improved); and
* 42% of those who had moved to shorter hours thought that it had
decreased stress in their private life, vs. 6% who felt it had
increased.

"This study shows a real success story: Shorter working hours have
become widespread in Iceland... and the economy is strong across a
number of indicators," Haraldsson said
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a statement.

Indeed, as _CNN_reported
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In 2023, Iceland's economy expanded by 5%, a growth rate second only
to that of Malta among rich European economies, according to the
International Monetary Fund's latest World Economic Outlook
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published earlier this week. That is much higher than the country's
average growth rate of almost 2% in the decade between 2006 and 2015.

"Overall, the Icelandic economy has remained strong post the
introduction of a widespread shorter working week," Autonomy Institute
research director Will Stronge said
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a statement. "The evidence we've collected suggests that when workers
have a better work-life balance and are better rested—the economy
benefits too."

"The Iceland story offers a very different vision to countries across
Europe that are grappling with low productivity but trying the same
old failed methods," he added.

_BRETT WILKINS is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

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