In my previous job I was in middle management and there was a lot of talk of moving to a shorter work week. We all worked 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, which is pretty normal, but many people wanted to work 10 hours a day, 4 days a week. I often thought if that would really make my colleagues happier. So I started looking at the literature to see if there had been any studies to back up the idea of a shorter work week, or working less hours.
The first problem is that happiness is very difficult to define. Different people and particular cultures view their lives in particular ways and what may lead to happiness in one person, may not lead to happiness in another. On top of that, different studies tend to use different definitions for happiness or may measure it in disparate ways.
For example, one factor that may affect happiness that is unrelated to length of the work week is traffic. This is outside of the zone of control for most employers but can have a huge impact of the well-being of workers. A person may remain unhappy regardless of work week if they spend 2 hours per day stuck in gridlock.
A 2019 study by Visual Capitalist found that there is a mild negative correlation between working hours and happiness. The 5 happiest countries all worked less than the average of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
While the 5 unhappiest countries all worked more than the average.
But the correlation is far from perfect. Germany, the country with the least hours worked (1365 hours per year) ranks 16th in happiness, whereas Mexico which has the longest work hours (2143 per year) ranks 20th in happiness.
An analysis done in the United States in 2015 found the opposite. It found that the happiest people worked between 50-59 hours per week, and the least happy worked between 35-39 hours per week. A possible explanation for this may be monetary. The workers doing between 50-59 hours per work may be receiving greater compensation for their time and their happiness may be a reflection of their increased income. The employees working between 35-39 hours per week may be underemployed and unable to make ends meet working those hours.
After further reflection I think the fact that this analysis was of American workers may influence the results. Other developed countries have access to universal healthcare and subsidized schools, where in the U.S. these are not available unless one has money to afford them.
The data is far from complete. A multifaceted issue like happiness makes it very hard to come up with clear answers.
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