Is It Time for the United States to Consider a Shorter Work Week?

By Martin Hart-Landsberg
November 14, 2014 • 2:00 PM

Iceland continues to experiment with new ways to promote majority living standards. According to the Icelandic Grapevine, a bill has been submitted to the Icelandic parliament that would shorten the work week. More specifically, it would change the definition of a full-time work week to 35 hours instead of the current 40 and the full workday to seven hours rather than the current eight.

As the Grapevine reports:

The bill points out that other countries which have shorter full time work weeks, such as Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Holland and Norway, actually experience higher levels of productivity. At the same time, Iceland ranked poorly in a recent OECD report on the balance between work and rest, with Iceland coming out in 27th place out of 36 countries.