Dutch Courage

Instead of merely guessing about the advantages and disadvantages of the four-day week, suggests the Financial Times, why not look to a country who already does it? The Netherlands has practically arrived there by stealth.

Netherlands has become one of my favourite countries to visit. It’s also the only country I ever visit. What I mean is, I often visit “Paris” but not really “France.” The city is usually the draw for me, not the country. With Netherlands, however, I love Amsterdam, Utrecht, Delft and Rotterdam. And I like to travel between them on excellent, clean and pleasant Dutch trains. It seems I’m fond, for once, of the country.

Average working weekly hours for people aged 20 to 64 in their main job are just 32.1, the shortest in the EU … It has also become increasingly common for full-time workers to compress their hours into four days rather than spread them over five, says Bert Colijn, an economist at Dutch bank ING. “The four-day work week has become very, very common,” he told me.

Honestly, if your country was as nice as the Netherlands, was so darn functional, and so filled with worthwhile things to do, you’d probably work fewer days too. Because there are things other than work to occupy your time. Or maybe it’s the other way around: maybe working fewer days has made for a happier, prouder, better engaged citizenry who are only too happy to contribute.

Colijn’s view is that the Netherlands is, in theory, holding itself back by working fewer hours. On the other hand, he adds, “I also wouldn’t want to propose any dystopian society where everyone is working more than Korean hours, just because it increases GDP.”

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