2024 Undergrad Econ Debate: Should the workweek be shortened to four days?

okay so um welcome everybody uh to uh the uh undergraduate debate and economic uh events day I hope everybody uh has been enjoying the events that we've had today and this is a nice way uh to wrap up uh the semester um and so I guess this uh in this debate we'll be debating whether to reduce the work week right and we have our pro team over here and our con team um over here um I don't know if Grace is going and our uh moderator is Grace Davis from the undergraduate economics class I don't know Grace if you're going to ask people to introduce themselves or whether I should uh Do It um you can yeah you guys okay so why don't we have everybody uh from the pro and con team introduce themselves go up there oh yeah I guess so why don't you introduce yourself when you come up here the first time because I guess we need the microphone to have for everybody to hear so when you come up um the first time then then uh uh introduce yourself and um I'll be uh judging the debate along with Arena B from the economics department and also Chris Boon from the economics department so I'm really looking forward uh to hearing what you all have to say and I think now Grace will come up and will tell us the rules of the oops of the debate hello I'm Grace Davis I'm going to be moderating the debate today um so the formatting of the debate is starting with 15minute opening statements from either side starting with the affirmative um we'll then have a f minute break for each team to collect their thoughts and move on to a 16-minute back and forth broken up into four pieces um with four minutes for the affirmative four minutes negative and then back and forth for that amount of time um I think we should give them a brief break and then have let's say two-minute break and then a 10-minute Q&A from the judges where the judges at this point will have seen a lot so they'll you know be able to drill down into things things that they want to hear more from get maybe a a side to clarify a particular Point that'll be 10 minutes and then we'll move on to two minute closing statements one from either side um so that's the formatting of the debate um I guess to okay would you guys um for introducing yourselves would you guys rather do that how tight are you in terms of time for the opening statements like are you exactly to 15 minutes or is a little do you have a little bit okay then yeah I guess we can just keep the introductions in the opening statement if it's not too like ruinous for people all right um so we can start with the open uh sorry we can start with the affirmative side um whenever they feel ready then we um Can Begin that time it's 15 minutes and uh I'll start the timer I will give you guys a five minute warning and I'll give you guys a one minute warning and then I'll cut you off if you're still talking hello we are the affirmative for why we should transition to a 4-day work week workers all throughout the United States are fed up with being with the status quo right now they are tired and overworked levels of stress are shown to be high while happiness is low and uh well-being and happiness is low and productiv productivity is being stopped by burnout and people all around agree that we have difficulty B balancing life and work now more than ever that was what was happening in the early 1900s and see that all of you thought was rrring to the current day yes we are dealing with the same problems that we did 100 years ago now how did they fix it back then the solution they came up with to these problems in the 1900s was transitioning from a Six-Day work week to a 5day work week people's work life balance became far were far more balanced which actually uh resulted in productivity increasing and the pay to stay the same uh but times are changing and these problems of the past have resurfaced our history has set a precedent for us we must take the solution of the past one step further and trans transition to a 4-day work week given how we transitioned once before we can see this debate is not a question of whether our economy can uh sustain a transition but whether or not uh a 4 days is better than 5 days in answering the problems we Face to answer this question we will cover topics including economic theories we all love as economists real life examples productivity and more thank you Taylor my name is Wes and I'm going to talk about Theory here English economist John manard KES argued that in Progressive countries the standard of living is going to increase kind of rapidly over time and this was a prediction that he gave back in the year 1930 and his time period was 100 years that was the example he gave because he was looking and talking about his grandchildren in the future and he believed that people would still want to do some work at this time but they would be content with 15 hours a week and the standard of living was going to have increased tremendously and he thinks that he his idea was that people would have be have already accomplished so much and the standard of living for future Generations has already been raised sign so significantly that why are we still working as hard as we did to get to this point um reducing the number of hours people spend working a job also allows for more adequate time for people to complete life's tasks with reduced stress levels today mental health is on the decline among young people largely and is becoming one of the more pressing issues facing not only our country but most of the world stress is a huge Factor playing into depression and anxiety and many people today point to their jobs as their main stressors in their day-to-day lives then the point to life is liberty and the pursuit of happiness and we are seeing work becoming the main culprit and chipping away people's happiness since the year 2000 we've noticed that happiness and well-being have been on the decline this according to the world happiness report and we want happiness to increase along with our increased standard of living but what's going on right now in society is we're seeing the complete opposite of this obviously there are other factors at play such as social media and state of politics right now but stress in the workplace is really not looking great these days um according to the American Institute of stress 62% of workers experience high stress levels and some feel that they aren't in control and feel fatigued this is diametrically opposed to the 5% saying that they have low stress levels while in the workplace these numbers speak for themselves people are too stressed at their jobs and this excess stress is deteriorating Mental Health on a large scale scaling back the number of hours people spend at work will have large positive impacts on stress reduction and Society overall and mental health is something that has been closely paid attention to now and has become an important factor for decision-making of any kind one small step that we can take right now is to address these growing problems to adopt a shorter Work Week hello my name is Lee southernland um the 5-day 40-hour work week is outdated and has proven to have NE negative impacts on the employees and the environment the 5-day work week has a negative impact on the environment since many jobs are still in person and the transportation to uh to work 5 days a week puts a strain on the environment seen from research done by UMass amher um political economy Research Institute a 10% reduction of hours causes a 12.1 decrease in ecological footprint a 14.6 decrease in carbon footprint and a 4.2 decrease in carbon emissions the 5-day week work week also isn't fair for those who are low income and have to work more than one job to make ends meet um they are either not able to work multiple jobs or if they do they have no time for anything else we're also seeing that more schools are starting to Pilot the 4-day school week and if this is becoming more common then the 4-day work week will be make more sense since parents won't have to pay an extra day of child support if they aren't there um perhaps the biggest problem with the five out day work week is burnout burnout is defined as a state of mental physical and emotional exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress I'm sure many people have experienced that especially with finals week coming up um stress from work uh perpetrated this and having to do the same thing five 5 days 40 hours a week causes high level stress and loss of motivation as well as not having enough time in the week to do Hobbies have personal time and family time since and this can make burnout worse since you feel that your job isn't worth um what you're giving up um mental health awareness is also becoming more prevalent in the workplace and high levels of stress can cause more mental health issues such as depression and anxiety all these factors cause high level of stress and burnout accumulating into lower productivity levels which is bad for companies and the economy hello my name is Mike and I'd like to uh make the empirical case for the 4-day work week so first I want to emphasize that um the 4-day work week which it means like reducing the work week in general from say like to um usually 32 hours it's not just some crazy idea but it has been um tested many times where um companies and governments and um different parts of the world have um agreed to like um have their employees work less hours per week and for the same pay and we have like results from them and it's almost been universally positive for almost all the firms which um have participated in them first a notable experiment occurred in Sweden where 80 nurses and an elderly care home adopted a 6-hour workday and the trial was a success and it led to improved physical and mental health for the majority of nurses involved we also see evidence from New Zealand where the financial services for impet Perpetual Guardian instituted a 4-day work week for its employees across the company and found improvements in a variety of organizational factors including um including uh improved work life balance for employees and uh less stress the trial was so successful that the CEO of Perpetual Garden Andrew Barnes is actually one of the um leading Advocates worldwide for reducing the work week which goes to show that it's not just like um employ workers who are advocating for this but it's also um CEOs of companies right and another trial occurred in Iceland which I know I think uh Lee is going to talk about next but it was successful too and one another one in the um the US which involved 41 companies and 9888 participants found increases in employee satisfaction and Company support for the measures uh here you can see that um that the tri as the trial went on uh factors such as burnout uh physical health uh mental health life satisfaction improved and the trial over overall received a 9.1 out of 10 rating among among employees and 8.7 out of 10 rating among companies finally the largest trial to date in the United Kingdom involved 61 companies and 2900 workers across a variety of a variety of Industries which experienced an overall 4-Hour drop per week and found that um 39% of employees reported less stress 71% reported reduced levels of burnout while the company's experienced 35 a 35% increase in Revenue while the tri trial went on and a 57% drop employee turnover crucially the study rejects the idea that reducing the work week only works in certain professions such as like say white collar jobs right but in highlights the flexibility of how of reducing the work week it it notes that each quote each company design a policy tailored to its particular particular industry organizational challenges departmental structures and work culture a range of 4-day work weeks were therefore developed furthermore based off the success of these trials Corporate America is very receptive to the idea a kmg survey found that 30% of large corporations are experimenting with reducing the work week so to conclude my part the evidence for the reducing the work week exists and it's pretty strong um one of our group members couldn't make it due to the stomach bugs so I'll be presenting her research um contrary to Conventional opinion longer hours don't NE necessarily equate to increased productivity in fact Studies have shown that prolonged work hours often lead to burnout decreased morale and diminished efficiency by condensing the work week into 4 days we give employees the gift of time a pre precious resource that can be invested in rest Rejuvenation and personal development with extra days off employees return to work feeling uh energized ready to tackle challenges more clear and refreshed they have the opportunity to purchase Hobbies pursue Hobbies engage in physical activity or simply relax and recharge this does not only enhance their overall wellbeing but also Fosters a more positive and productive work environment moreover a 4-day work week promotes work life balance a concept that has become increasingly elusive in today's fast-paced world by giving employees an additional day to spend with their families pursue personal interest or attend errands we Empower them to lead more fulfilling lives outside of the office this in turn leads to Greater jobs satisfaction improve mental health and reduce turnover rates according to CNN in Iceland beginning in 2015 2 200 public sector workers started working 35 to 36 hour weeks with no change in Pay careful research found positive effects all all around workers had less stress more energy better work life balance as well as steady or improved productivity but perhaps most importantly a 4-day work week isn't just about working less it's about working smarter with fewer days in the office employees are incentivized to prioritize tasks streamline processes and eliminate inefficiencies this encourages Innovation creativity and strategic thinking all of which are essential ingredients for long-term success in today's competitive landscape all right so that was yeah give them a round of applause all right so that was the affirmative side um I'll just read out the names of the partici participants right now is wait is this on is this working it doesn't seem like it's not working well it stopped working well oh well that's not great I guess I'll just try to project my voice um yeah so that was the affirmative side um with Wesley whand Michael Weagle Lee southernland Taylor Quigley and Emily Ono who could not make it today but contributed to her research so that was the affirmative side and for the negative side we have cole Hartford Charlotte l Alex hang Gabriel Mach Garen sakan and aditha anad Anand Anand and they are the negative side uh they're about to do their opening statement um I'll give you guys a second to arrange you know get your slides up uh figure things out and let me know and I'll start the 15minute timer okay the 4day work week sounds amazing it is a flashy headline and a concept most people are immediately on board with however despite the marketing around the idea a 4day work week is not a cure all solution is riddled with issues since it does not work for all Industries exacerbates inequalities does not help with employees stress and does not increase productivity we are not better off implementing a widespread 4-day work week one of the biggest issues with implementing a widespread 4-day work week is that it fails to acknowledge the diverse array of Industries in which people work few Industries can Implement a 4-day work week without significant staffing issues and disruptions to Output productivity and social institutions these the hurdles these industries would face make implementing a 4-day work week impractical for example all cap an engineering and Industrial Supplies company struggled to operate efficient efficiently while experimenting with the 4-day work week because of the business their business model is based on irregular intervals firms like all cap wait for customers to place orders and then manufacture the and directly the directly ordered materials through their trial with the 4-day work week all caps window of business shrunk shrunk drastically employees struggled with with four extremely busy work days and did not experience the intended positive effects of having a short week when another fir firm citizens advice experimented with the 4-day work week they found issues with Staffing The Firm relies on contact centers to interact with its customers Mondays and Fridays are usually their busiest days during the trial the company had to invest in almost three extra employees worth of money to keep the up with a 4-day work week in most cases firms such as restaurants and Emergency Services fewer work hours would mean more workers must be hired to compensate a move that would be impossible depending on the abundance of workers and the cost of hiring additional workers Industries open seven days a seven days a week require Around the Clock Staffing and are often subjected to the solution and are often subjected to the solution that they could simply cut their workers hours and make up the difference through hiring to adapt a 4-day work week but as we said before this is not practical consequently a Drive Research survey found that 62% of businesses stated that implementing a 4-day work week would require a reduction in employees salaries and reduction in salaries would harm the economy as people would have less money to spend additionally we need to think about schools there's this is is another profession where the 4-day work week has been experimented with currently there are over 900 districts in the US that utilize a 4-day work week the intended outcome was Employee retention and while they have been able to retain teachers the program places undue stress and burden on the families of the district most people are not working the 4-day work breek and having the extra day off now presents a new Need for child care will the district offer child care for 30 EX for the extra day for $30 a day per kid this adds up to an additional $1,080 of of money per child each year this is simply not feasible for many families both these examples do not even mention the elephant in the room the white collar and blue collar split the 4-day work week only appears to work well in white collar industries those in salary jobs are able to experience the luxury of an extra day off even if that puts more strain on their jobs but for those unable to secure such a position they might just be looking at reduced hours or not even getting to participate in a 4-day work week at all on this front the issue of hourly jobs rears its head many jobs operate on a out out on an hourly wage and with each worker being paid on the amount of hours they work people working these jobs will lose out on valuable opportunities to earn money the New York Time Magazine pointed out that when one can hardly pay their bill the absence of full-time work is often experienced as a deprivation rather than a reprive it continues on to point out that while a reduction hours for a salary employee might be seen as a labor Victory it leaves the hourly laborer with both less pay in a more unpredictable schedule this isn't even mentioning how there are other ways that companies can maximize employee efficiency giving the option to work remotely more paid mental health days and a limit on what employees are expected to do beyond their working hours are all options that companies can consider instead of a 4-day work week so whether it's maximizing the efficiency of businesses or making sure employees are at their best a 4-day work week is just a mandate that many Industries won't be able to adapt to although at a glance it may seem like a 4-day work week is beneficial to society the reality is far different a 4-day work week would actually cause workers to have more stress and fatigue and it also carries negative Health consequences as stated in Forbes Magazine in 2023 it doesn't address the core issue of how we work just how many days we do it eliminating Fridays does not solve the issue of constant interruptions um and Days full of meetings emails messages pings and texts as our work habits and the distractions that come with them that contribute to burnout while reducing work hours May delay burnout onset uh ignoring the fundamental problems with our work culture and daily habits will inevitably ensure we remain on the same stressful path truly uh if we Implement a 4-day work week we're walking a very fine line between extra day of relaxation and increases distress and fatigue that would overall lead to a decrease in productivity or even lead to some dangerous consequences uh Professor dembe a professor of Health at Ohio State uh asserts that a 4-day work week leads to a 37% higher risk of industrial accident and all this assumes that we can even Implement a 4-day work week in the first place the sad reality is that the overall number of job posts advertising a 4-day work week remains low clocking in only around uh 0.3% of total posts according to Harvard Business Review experts seem to think that a 4-day work week is not going to be implemented anytime soon three upen experts said it's a nice idea that could take root in small parts of the industry but they don't hold out hope for widespread change sure if you Tre pick the best studies a 4-day work week sounds great but when you realize the reality of health concerns in the small scale that a 4-day work week is being tested on it doesn't sound as good Jus hi uh I'm ad and my point is about my first point is about loneliness uh a specific stressor that can be exacerbated by 4-day work week is loneliness and social isolation it's a well-known fact that America is dealing with loneliness at epidemic levels with the 19th US Surgeon General V Mory saying that it's the greatest Public Health crisis we Face Studies by health insurance provider siga in 2020 found out that more than three out of five Americans deal with considerable levels of loneliness showing a 133% increase from 2018 further the highest levels of loneliness were found in J C the same generation that be greatly affected by a change of 4-day work week the study linked uh the the study linked loneliness to having negative impacts on mental and physical health with the plos medical journal stating that loneliness was comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day further new workplace Norms because of covid with virtual and hybrid work environments reduces the time individuals spend in work in general which on a count average for onethird of an individual's lifetime if one were to add a 4-day work week on top of this the impact it would have on individual social and relationships lost because of it could not is incalculable with loneliness already being such a big issue in America and the rest of the world World actions like a 4day work week have to be considered with the impact it might have on the people it's trying so hard to help the second idea is putting the idea of a 4day work week itself into the current economic system that we're in the truth is we live in a capitalist Society across the world employees are seen as individuals to produce enough Revenue in order to generate a profit for the company such organization they work for as such ideas like a 4-day work week would only pass if they don't hinder The Profit that can be generated by the employees in such an idea corporations would lose an entire day of Labor from the workers and as such would find ways to recuperate them in the four days that the workers now actually work on this could mean more managers to make workers more productive this could mean assigning more work on the days they do work and in the case of virtual work days pushing the boundaries of work to make employees work at times when they would not normally be asked to a study by La based Staffing firm Robert Half found that people in virtual work environments were more likely to feel pressured to work on weekends work more than 8 hours a day and were unable to fully disconnect from work an issue we saw a lot during CO as work has now entered the home a divide that used to exist a clear divide that used to exist back in the day has now been blurred for many people ideas like a 4-day work week could very possibly lead to the same negative outcomes for those it is implemented on in time leading to work culture the same or even worse than what we have right now the fact of the matter is we are here to debate if a 4-day work week is a good idea and because of this I don't think this is the i in the and because of this it must be considered the lens of the present day reality in which I don't think a 4 day work week is the way forward our next Point concerns a reality that has been already Dawning on the labor market for the past decade particularly since covid with more companies switching to Virtual and Hybrid models of work workers are less and less required to engage in face-to-face interactions with their colleagues and Leadership the negative consequences of this will only be magnified by reducing the number of days they show up what are these consequences firstly is less spontaneous interactions A reduced presence in the office limits opportunities for casual unplanned conversations such interactions are often the seeds of innovation spontaneous discussions that lead to collaboration across departments or the exchange of expertise such organic collaborations could become rare moreover such unplanned engagements play a vital role in building and nurturing professional relationships trust and chemistry are developed through these dayto day exchanges which in turn contribute to a more cohesive and productive Workforce in the absence of these spontaneous interactions employees may find it more challenging to establish the depth of Rapport necessary for Effective teamwork and Innovation second rushed work is bad work moreover the compression of the work week may lead to rushed tasks Under Pressure to complete the same amount of work and less time the output of quality may suffer leading to suboptimal work results this can affect client satisfaction and Company reputation in the long term lastly I'd like to talk about the 3-day weekends are kind of too big of a break for us we might have three four or five 3-day weekends throughout the current calendar year and once we get back to the office on Monday mornings it might be kind of tough to get back to the uh way of things so having a 3-day weekend every single week is actually not really that good good of an idea all right good afternoon next A reduced in-office schedule also weakens the connection between leadership and employees leading to a Cascade of negative effects with fewer days in the office or in in any other workplace even remote there are less opportunities for real-time feedback mentorship and career development this results in misalignments not only within teams but also between different levels of leadership in a 4-day work week there are fewer days for leadership to gather input from employees discuss options and make decisions this leads to slower decision-making processes which can be frustrating for employees who may need quick responses or guidance to move forward with their own work reduced interactions can also lead to a perception among employees that leadership is out of touch with their needs and challenges eroding trust and morale within the organization monitoring employee performance and providing timely feedback can be more challeng challenging with a shorter Work Week impacting employee development and overall productiv perhaps a manifestation of employees having lost commitment to their employer or leadership is a phenomenon of dual employment with the rise of remote jobs people are increasingly taking on more than one full-time job often two full-time jobs now as people find themselves with an extra day off some may be tempted to ctly take on such additional jobs this trend dilutes focus and commitment on the company Mission impacting productivity loyalty to the primary employer even worse when the companies are in competition a Reddit Community Reddit is a popular online Forum called our overemployed has over 300,000 members ranking in the top 1% of Reddit communities it shares methods and ideas on dealing with being a full-time employee in two different companies and often an essential component to this is making sure the employers do not catch on many users sharing advice and stories about nearly getting caught moreover an essential component to the disconnection between employee and Leadership is poor communication as we've shown communication communication will clearly be affected in a 4-day work week a study published by Forbes adviser shows that imperson conversation is a strongly preferred method of communication for in-person office employees as you can see here the blue bar strikes is quite striking there is simply no substitute for face-to-face convers ations whether with respect to human connection or workplace productivity a day lesson that week to chat talk about personal and professional matters will undoubtedly lead to less of these types of interactions of conversations new day people come in fresh and open to talk in addition this same study has shown that digital communication which is likely to increase with less days for teams and employees to interact in person is a significant cause of burnout now in conclusion you see this right here in conclusion the concept of a 4-day work week may seem attractive but its implementation would have significant drawbacks and is not suitable for every industry it would exacerbate issues like classism disrupt Industries reliant on traditional schedules and hinder sectors requiring high responsiveness and Innovation concerns about hourly wages increase stress and decreas productivity also point to the 4-day work week being a bad idea it's a bad idea for for worker satisfaction for individual Company Success and the economy as a whole okay thank you to the negative side we'll now give both teams five minutes to collect their thoughts and take some notes um and then after that we're going to go into our rebuttal section which will be four four minute segments of the teams responding to each other's arguments so whenever the affirmative side is ready they can come up to the podium and begin their rebuttals okay so I think the opposition does make a good point about that work culture does have a serious problem in this country but I think uh the evidence shows and we've made the case that um that the for that reducing the work week is a step in the right direction so first of all I'd like to address the point that this is going to result in a um in less pay for workers well what we're explicitly ating is that um workers get paid the same for Less hours and this seems to have no impact no negative impact on productivity according to the studies we have cited and also I I recall um Charlotte was talking about some companies where um uh the 4day work week or um producing the work week didn't work well it not every policy is perfect like every single policy has a neg has a negative effect on someone it's just about but the goal of um implementing a policy is to support more people than people are getting than number of people getting harmed and the 4day work League surely does that and it has um wide popularity from the trials we have cited and about it only um not working in Blue Collar professions well the US trial uh involved companies in a variety of Industries such as Healthcare mark marketing entertainment engineering construction and it was pretty successful all around and it's a very flexible proposal too because um companies can um design a work schedule that fits their business needs right and I'd also like to um touch on a couple points I the opposition made a point that um a study from Ohio State found that um there is a that a increased risk of industrial accidents by the 4-day work week they were talking about a 4-day work week with um with um they were not talking about reducing the work week and the way they were advocating they were talking about a work schedule where people would work equal hours for um they would work the same hours but in less days and also um the the graph you showed about only 20% of employees left their job because of um because of um their um be because uh because of um the long hours well where else are they going to go no most companies don't have a 35h hour work week or 32h Hour Work Week where they can go to we would like to uh make a few points about their graphical information and how in a way they lie to you uh in a very one of their slides they had three graphs up and on the left was they're trying to make a point about how lonely this has been spiking but they showed a graph of grade school students how does that relate to the 4-day work we get all another one that I'd like to point out is you might remember they had a graph of many categories in a circle showing you what they wanted to show you but that uh people working too much is increasing stress but right above that actually showed that more people are getting stressed out from Child Care the 4-day work week would allow more time for families to watch over their kids so this problem wouldn't exist thank you now we will have time for the negative yeah Round of Applause sure now we will open it up to the negative side for their first four minute uh portion of the back and forth okay so first of all in response to their argument about um the benefits in terms of stress levels so you cited a study that showed a clear correlation between less work less amount of work and uh reduced stress levels right now fundamentally the question is whether what the causal mechanism is there whether a reduction in the amount of hours actually caused that reduction in stress or whether there's something about reducing the hours work per week that also leads in some way to a reduction in stress from the evidence we showed you about communication being a primary like primary cause of bad communication being primary cause of burnout we uh claim that it's not the amount of work that matters it's poor leadership that matters it's bad communication between employes and their leaders that matters that fundamentally determines stress levels no one day less I just wanted to touch on the idea that like mental health issues are EX masturbated by the 5-day Work Week um for a lot of people uh work is like their main source of human connection um and social interaction so by cutting one day off the work week uh that would most likely actually negatively impact uh mental health so you guys mentioned how the 5-day work week is not fair for low-income families but I think the 4-day work week actually be less fair for the low-income families because they're most low-income families are working minimum wage jobs right so their salaries are not going to increase with a 4-day work week and um cut putting a cap on the hours they can work is just going to make them a lot more stressed um just decrease the quality of their life and also they're going to try and squeeze in 5 days of worth of work in 4 days so let they might be working nighttime shifts so actually um you guys were saying how they can spend more time with family that's actually going to work like it's going to backfire I think so I wanted to respond to your point about the grasp by loneliness that I brought up or I put on the slides the one on the left about grade school children was supposed to show that how loneliness was already an issue existing in grade school children and changed like a 4-day work we could increase the issue even more uh the graph on the middle was to Showcase how the current picture of liness in America where 15 to 18y olds have a one one out of four of 15 to 18y olds have levels of loneliness that are considerable or they feel very lonely and the last graph on the right was to showcase the impacts of loneliness because of co uh the last point that the conside would like to make would be about that would be about the blue collar worker point that they keep sighting and about how we actually have studies that are quite flexible I would like to see the actual Industries in it instead of a general oh these are some hypothetical BL col Industries and they somehow work we have yeah 13 seconds left on the clock um for that segment so if that's all you guys have to say I give them a round of applause we've been doing rounds of Applause for everything all right we'll give um four more minutes to the affirmative and then four minutes to the negative after them um then we'll open it up to Q&A so let's hear the negative I mean the affirmative so it was mentioned by the opposing side that a 4-day work week would not work for both white and blue collar industries and I'm here to say I'm here to ask why would you believe that if this country transition from a Six-Day work week to a 5-day Work Week across the board and we're just fine now and we now see problems with that model and we want to make changes it's going to be difficult there is going to be a transitional period and not every policy is going to have 100% success some policies will fail there are going to be fundamental problems with Staffing with pay with hiring with firing with any everything adopting this new model it's not going to work overnight but addressing these fundamental problems the workers have spoken no one comes home at the end of the day and says I wish I spent more time in the office I really want to keep being stressed they come home and say I hate my job or I'm very stressed I'm I'm losing my mind they they are spending too much time in the office it's very obvious no one wants to spend more time so spending less time would have positive impacts on their stress levels and it was mentioned that experts believe that this is a bad idea experts can think that this is a bad idea in the 1940s experts our medical experts thought smoking was fine smoking cigarettes was normal and doctors offices until over time there were studies done and then we figured out it's you even the experts figured that out they were wrong because it was just something they think and having a 3-day weekend I do want to address having a 3-day weekend is not going to cause issues in the long run for people coming in to work on Monday after a long weekend because that long weekend will eventually become the norm a two-day weekend was a long weekend back then when we used to only have one day off so having a 3-day weekend and as opposed to two-day weekend yes will be crazy in the beginning but it will become normal very quickly as the industry adapts and I also did want to mention one more thing so you were talking about stress and how workers are leaving from stress so if workers are saying they are very stressed at work and they work too much how is working too much not the cause of their stress if this is what they're saying um I also wanted to counteract your point cuz you offered um remote remote work and mental health days as a solution um but then you counter that by later saying that remote work causes people to take their work home with them and how remote work actually isn't as helpful so okay so first I'd like to briefly touch on the point about um that our studies not showing a causal mechanism well one of the Sweden study I mentioned before actually did and found that the 4-day work week it allows for other like interventions that um are shown to have a positive effect on mental health it enables these to happen now a response to um to Alex about an example I have an example right here of a Manufacturing Company implementing their own unique um unique working schedule which it's basically called the um protected model where um our staff like take their take um a day off but like in some circumstances like staff can be called in in like usually like emergencies C cumstances but it's um staff still um work uh reduced hours and quote the manager of a small scale manufacturer used a staggering model recognized that the business could be vulnerable in in an emergency on days with lower staff coverage all right thank you now we'll have the final segment of our back and forth with one more 4minute segment from the negative side so just to complete that elaboration on on causal mechanism perhaps judges are interested in their questions um and in that too but what we suggest is that it's not the amount of hours that that leads to these decreased levels of stress it's could be just less exposure to leadership to bad leadership that is for example or any other factors that you have with more amount of hours work it's not the amount of hours themselves another Point brought up was that with less days workers would be incentivized to work more efficiently uh just allocate their time better um we claim that's to speculation I mean um it seems very counterintuitive to claim that you as a worker you're being you're being given more work okay your response to that is let me become more efficient rather than you being why am I giving more work now so those are two responses so one thing the positive side addressed is uh my bar graph um which says uh because of child care issues um it that's a top reason for uh us workers leaving a job but um a 4-day work week would likely lead to more child care issues because um I mean if schools still operated on a 5day schedule whereas workers operate on a 4-day schedule would just create like a logistical nightmare where you can't pick your kids up from school in time and daycare um and also um working too many hours is comparable to working too few hours for the reasons that people left a job I would like to thank the affirmative side for giving the manufacturing example I am pleased with that I would however like to stress something that I think I would like to be elaborated more which is does the affirmative side believe that we should establish a for a 40 Work Week general or business-wise because you've been talking about cuz yes the manufacturing company works well with their own policy but that's their own policy that's not every single industry and then another point which is about how no one everyone about complaining to work I would like to bring up the fact that people there are people who work multiple jobs we've already talked about this with the arch class overworked and how they are sharing tips and strategies who avoid being caught by their employers for working multiple jobs okay cool all right thank you negative side amazing after the judges deliberate we'll open it up to a 10-minute Q&A okay so we have some questions um we'll each come up up here and ask a couple questions maybe we'll try to keep it to 3 minutes each so that for each question so I just had a couple of questions uh so for the pro side um you argued that you know this change would be good for both workers and employers and so if that's the case I suppose my question is why aren't people doing this already or to some extent you said that some people are doing this already but if it's really good for both it's a win-win for both workers and firms then you know to the extent that's the case why aren't they um doing it already a related question I have for sort of both sides is what sort of you talked a lot about which would be better but what sort of laws and policies um would you uh Advocate to support um your position and since I asked the uh uh Pro a question I also want to ask the con question which is do your arguments actually imply that we should increase uh the length of the work week or if not then what are the reasons why it would be bad to to to increase the length and do those reasons not argue for for decreasing the length so those are my questions here's the first question really quick uh why is this not being implemented yet if we believe there are going to be benefit large benefits to this and our response is it's because this is a shift sh in the status quo this is not something like I was saying earlier this is not something that just happens overnight and we have brought up case studies where companies and countries are actually adopting this new model and they are sharing their research with us it's going to take time for everybody to be on board with this because it is a huge change and people are resistant to change that's just inate human quality and the shift from the status quo is this is shifting from working 5 days which is the traditional work week to four that going to take some time because there are there are a lot of professions where like hospitals you can't just close a hospital you can't close a police station there are going to be professions where this isn't going to happen but it's going to take time so it's not happening with everybody but it's slowly happening in small increments and it's just getting the ball rolling it's kind of like a The Snowball Effect because we're seeing positive results in all these most of these studies to address what like policies we would advocate for the um Fair labor standards act that was amended in 1940 that set the 40-hour work week and today weekend as like the official mandate in the United States that's what the negative side would have um we would Advocate to keep that and maintain that as it is just adding to that we'd say that in some manner laws and policies can Encompass or manifest uh bring about good leadership good communication good a good word culture those things that actually matter for prevention of burnout or a good workplace environment and and so in that case really that should like laws and policies should we should prioritize um what would actually bring about a good work culture and as we've shown reducing the work week by one day will not do that quite the obiously oh yeah and uh should we increase the length from from of of the work week back to six well a six- day work week reducing that to five is fundamentally different than reducing a five day work week to 4 days 2 days is double of one day so just the marginal gains you get is is quite it's a very quite a very different situation the change you're talking about um in the interest of time I think we should move to the next question hi uh both sides uh brought really uh good arguments uh and summarizing all of that so for affirmative side you said that uh it would 4 days uh 4 day week would increase productivity uh happiness uh less stress uh so what do you think about um like uh making three days uh 3-day week instead so would they uh increase even more productivity increase happiness uh um decrease stress uh and um to your to the negative side um I have the the opposite question question so would all your arguments like would it U decrease loneliness uh increase salaries and uh Etc um if people would work six days instead so would it would be even better would they be happier and uh another uh very important thing uh you both like both sides uh you both uh spoke about happiness but your perspective on that were completely different uh like opposite I would say not not just different uh So Pro side said that uh the less people work the happier they are uh the negative side said the more people work the happier they are so can you say that people are happiest ever when they work for days a week and when when they work 5 days a week or they would be even happier if they work 3 days a week and even happier if they work six days a week and um like additional um question uh to the negative side about loneliness uh why uh people who spend more time at work necessarily uh less lonely that than people who spend more time at home with family with friends uh especially uh work could be in person but could be remote uh so could you please explain more about this argument thanks so responding to the first question about loneliness or happiness increased with six days now for a lot of people six days would decrease their would indeed decrease their loneliness or happiness uh increase their happiness but for a lot of people especially people with families they have friends at work that's a significant Community to them but they equally have their family at home so increasing that to six would equally not not be a good idea for them so blanket solution for the whole economy switching it to six days is not a good idea either some people do happen to be happier with 6 days some people happen to be happier with 4 days uh we don't deny that there's cases where 4 days is a better solution but applying that to the whole economy as is just not a good idea as we show so for your point about loneliness and how that impacts uh how that's impacted by 5ay work week the last question you had it's more about how in the workplace because it accounts for about 1/3 of your overall lifetime um being in work it's kind of a way to build relationships so if you're redu reduce that to 4 weeks and have 3 days at home it kind of doesn't allow you to develop the relationships you normally would have if you were working five days a week and with the current 5day model you still have 8 hours after you work you still come back home to your family and friends you have the weekend with your family and friends so kind of balance in five their work week is something that I think we advocate for and we feel like moving towards 4-day work week would not really improve the learning situation I think would very easily can make it worse just to address some of your points um uh we're not implying that like working more means people are happier we're just um we're implying that like it's the main method of social connection for a lot of people so by cutting that off I mean sure some people have families but not everyone some people have to go home to uh just an empty house which is pretty depressing and also um like for the whole like 6 days um argument uh we're not like we're saying that should stick to the traditional 5-day schedule so 6 days 4 days it doesn't matter it's we want to stick to tradition um yeah um on how we define happiness for the affirmative side I believe we look at it through the lens of leisure being a main source of Happiness where uh a survey in the United States found that Leisure does play a significant role in affecting individual happiness um and then your question about why don't we just make it a three-day work week um we think that it would be too intensive from going from a 5 to a three but we don't know yet in the future depending on productivity and Technology cuz we've gone from 6 to 5 5 to four so maybe in the future we could go from 4 to 3 just not right now from going 5 to three all right thank you we'll now open it up to I think the final question yeah we have time yeah we have time I mean yeah it's if you guys are okay for more time then I'm okay for more time uh so all right let me just um so for the con side um so my questions are building a little on some of the questions that have been asked before but um you mentioned uh your comfortable the the current standard for overtime in the United States it applies after 40 hours a week and you want to keep it there um so one of the ways to implement a shorter work week would be to change the the hours threshold for overtime pay and so you could say not that these companies that really need workers 5 days a week they could still have workers 5 days a week they'd just be required to pay them overtime and so it would essentially raise the wages for the workers so I guess my question for you is uh you know there are arguments against the minimum wage there are arguments against uh unions and collective bargaining institutions that raise wages for workers uh you're against uh shortening the work week are you also against other policies to raise wages for workers like minimum wages and stronger unions and if not what's the distinction between uh you know lowering the overtime threshold in terms of hours and and some of these other policies and then for the for the pro side if you could talk a little more about you mentioned a lot of cases where companies voluntarily chose to implement a 4-day work week um if if you could talk a little more about whether we can sort of uh expect similar results if there was some policy mandate that then applied to all firms in particular consite has mentioned a few times that well there might be some companies that if they cut hours uh they won't be able to maintain the same level of overall earnings and so would we expect the results that you're talking about about happiness Etc to still apply if workers are seeing a reduction in their overall earnings thanks okay so responding to the first question what makes a 4-day work week so different from minimum agage or any other kind of policy is how workers will or the effect it would have on certain industries with minimum wage it's Tech generally speaking it's a solution you can apply to most Industries with before they work with some Industries would suffer or benefit but suffer a lot more than certain other Industries and so that's a key difference between the 40 work week and other policies uh you asked if uh we were against uh unions and minimum wage and not necessarily um if workers want uh if workers want these things um they'll ask for them them but uh there's no like widespread um like uh worker demand for a 4day work week yet so on the question about whether we'll see different um effects of um if this was government enforced rather than like voluntarily by uh companies well I think it's a it's a good point and that there might be Merit to it if like it's tested I think um so far if if um so far what we've seen in for example this was a government policy right like the government mandated the national city government and the capital of Iceland rashik and the um the n and the national government instituted A reduced work week for public sector employees and it it had a um overall it had no negative no there's no evidence that it um had a negative effect on um unemployment and I think um instituting I don't see like why like instituting it as a policy will make much will have like a negative effect while it's not having a negative effect on firms that are already doing it because it's already an organizational it's big organizational challenge for like a firm to um implement it right even if they're doing it voluntarily and I think that um at all firms would be able to do it all right thank you to both sides that closes off our 10minute Q&A section I think we went over 10 minutes by a little bit but you know time flies when you're having fun and talking about economics doesn't it guys all right we'll open it up to our closing statement um and we'll have two minutes for the affirmative two minutes for the negative then after that um the judges will go and deliberate um and then we're going to have somebody announcing the economic ceremony Awards um so that will be able to fill your time so we'll start on the affirmative uh when they step up here I'll start two minutes I just want to like to say thank you for staying us through our opening statements are back and forth and even giving us some great questions to answer uh our workers are facing so many problems at the moment being burned out or unhappy or just not being able to plan their life and work at the same time uh now let me remind you of what we've said so far today history shows that the solution to these problems is a transition to Less hours worked week workers are too stressed that stress turns into worse productivity which just turns into stress making this endless cycle having those extra hours off from the 4-day work week uh gives people time to recover and recuperate to make it so the cycle never happens there are many examples that we've stated from trials or actual imp uh implementations of the 4-day work week of showing the positives where even the some companies decided to keep the system after the trial we would like to make one point that what one minute okay we would like to make one point that they didn't even talk about our stance on the environment and how we have a research paper from here the political economic research institute how uh reducing hours worked results in lowered carbon emissions we hope that you can now see that the 4day work week is the answer to these problems we face in our economy instead of suffering in our 100-year-old structure we have now we should be implementing the new 4-day structure that's what humans are all about Innovation thank you now we'll give the negative a chance for their closing statement okay so just to know a couple of points the opposition has failed to respond to or insufficiently resp respond to number one the 4day work week is not a blanket solution not every industry is going to respond well most Industries are going to respond very poorly to reduction then next point is stress and fatigue we've shown that or opposition has not established a clear causal mechanism between one week one day less and less stress next they fail to respond to our assertions about Connections or disconnections between employee and Leadership communication being essential for workplace satisfaction and loneliness minute in addition opposition also failed to respond to the phenomenon of dual employment that being on the rise people getting more than one job employeers not knowing about this and it being a significant issue our eony uh when it comes to the 4-day work week the high achiever will ignore it and the low achiever will take advantage of it remember that disastrous project in college the one where the high Achievers did 99% of the work while the Slackers enjoy an eza similarly with a 4-day work week uh High achieving employees will keep being efficient and continue getting more work piled on until they burn out uh whereas the low Achievers will rejoice in their new found work life balance for a few weeks until the next new workplace Trend surfaces and they feel entitled to even less hours at the same pain all right that's time yeah give everybody a round of applause amazing yeah I thought that that there were really great arguments on both sides um so we'll give the judges some time to deliberate um while the economic ceremony awards are announced thank you okay so it was a really uh tough choice you all did not uh make it easy on us uh we learned a lot from this debate we really saw that there were strong arguments in favor of uh the the the 4-day uh work week and also strong arguments against uh ultimately we felt that the pro sign eak it out and and and came out ahead so uh we'd like to congratulate you on your Victory but uh the con side uh really gave you a run for uh your money so it was a great great debate and I would also like to thank uh Grace for being such a great uh moderator so let's give everybody a big round of applause