What a Difference a Day Makes, or Does It? Work/Family Balance and the Four-Day Work Week

Abstract

This Article considers the growing reliance that four-day work week advocates have placed on work/family claims. It begins by analyzing whether a compressed work schedule may alleviate work/family conflicts, and more importantly, for whom such benefits are most likely to accrue. While studies consistently find that many workers experience lower levels of work/family conflict when working a compressed schedule, the research also suggests that workers with the most acute work/family conflicts may be the least likely either to obtain or to benefit from a four-day work week design.

Nevertheless, the political climate surrounding the four-day work week provides a unique opportunity for action. This Article therefore considers how legal regulation might be used to shape four-day work week initiatives as a work/family balance tool. In particular, the Article considers how reflexive law proposals might contribute to the four-day work week debate. While existing reflexive law models typically rely on the creation and exercise of procedural rights vested in individual workers, this Article explores an under-developed alternative that would instead vest procedural rights primarily in workers as a group. The Article uses California’s extensive four-day work week regulations and the Federal Employees Flexible and Compressed Work Schedules Act to illustrate this “collective reflexive” approach, and to explore what this type of regulatory model might offer advocates who are seeking to facilitate greater work/family balance for those who may need it the most.

Keywords: work/family balance, employment law, four-day work week