ifo Viewpoint
Four-Day Work Week? No Longer in Keeping with the Times!
Clemens Fuest
ifo Institute, Munich, 2023
ifo Viewpoint No. 249
ifo Institute, Munich, 2023
ifo Viewpoint No. 249
Debates about the number of working days per week are nothing unusual in Germany. In the 1950s, the six-day week was the norm until the unions pushed through the reduction of working hours with the slogan “On Saturday, daddy belongs to me.” After many decades in which the five-day week was the norm, Germany and other countries are now intensively discussing the introduction of a four-day week.