You’ve heard of the four-day workweek, which has become an increasingly popular topic of discussion over the past few years, but how about the eight-hour workweek?

I’m not saying you shouldn’t bring it up with your boss, but you might want to start a little smaller, like landing a remote working day.

The gist of the eight-hour workweek argument stems from the fact that technology has enabled us to do so much more in a much shorter time.

If you minus all the Facebook stalking and Instagram scrolling you did today, you were incredibly efficient – or something like that.

For the lowdown here, we go to VICE:

In 1929, British economist John Maynard Keynes gave a now-famous lecture in which he predicted that later generations would work only 15 hours per week because of advanced technology. In 2000, MIT biophysicist and theoretical ecologist Erik Rauch said we could do even less: that an average worker only needs to work 11 hours per week to get as much done as 40 hours in 1950.

Productivity and money aside, working brings with it a number of other positive factors (socialising, a feeling of contributing, and identity status, among others), and unemployment can take a serious mental strain.

Leaving behind the 1929 and 2000 predictions, and the fact that your boss is never going to sign off on this flight of fancy, one question remains. What is the minimum amount of hours needed to reap those psychological benefits mentioned above?

A new study in Social Science and Medicine found that we only need to work eight hours a week total—less than one average 8.5-hour American work day—to get the psychological perks of working. After eight hours, well-being plateaus.

“It is like taking Vitamin C—we all need a certain dose, but taking it more than necessary does not bring any additional health benefits, and taking overly large amounts can actually have a harmful effect,” said Daiga Kamerade, first author and a sociologist at the University of Salford in England. At a certain point, overwork leads to burnout and negative mental health.

The study drew on data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, and relied on researchers asking at what point a person’s well-being improved.

Sadly, before we can even start to daydream about the chances of crushing a Monday nine-to-five and parking off for the rest of the week, the study points out how unfeasible the setup would be:

An important caveat to the study, however, is that it controlled for income. That means that the researchers’ finding about well-being only applies if people who work one day a week make the same amount of money as someone who works more.

If we actually wanted to work eight-hour weeks, it would require policy changes, like taxes, universal income, or wealth redistribution, so as not to “increase material hardship of those at the bottom of the labor market,” said Alex Wood, a researcher at Oxford University…

As soon as you mention ‘taxes’ and ‘universal income’ and ‘wealth redistribution’, you just know the powers up top are having a good laugh to themselves.

Sorry, not going to happen.

You can read more on that study, and what increased automation could mean for the workforce going forward, here.

[source:vice]