Ok my bad - what I really mean (and what this 4 day week really is) is flexible hours with an increased salary. That works out as you getting the same for a day less and people doing the same days getting paid more.

All that standardizing 4 days does is lower the expected hours. This is great for people who want to work 4 days as it won't be as hard to find such jobs. This isn't great for people who want to work 5 and may struggle to find that/ be forced into 'side hustles'.

Edit - on a somewhat related note given it's a bank holiday tomorrow I am choosing to work overtime on, I need to go to sleep! Cheers.

Yeh and that's why I said I more see it as supporting flexible working hours.

You want a day off for your hobby, fine. Someone else wants to work another day, fine. They will still earn more for doing that - whether you call it 5 days pay for 4 and 6 days pay for 5 or not is just semantics. Wages need to go up regardless. This proposal is about cutting hours for the same pay, great. I'm still going to choose to do more than they cut it to, if that means more money for me and more time off for you then everyone is happy.

I know. Being paid the same as 5 days still wouldn't stop a lot of people wanting to earn extra money by working the spare day off. Just like people doing overtime at the moment.

People always want more money. Some people will choose to work more to get it. That remains true whether their regular hours are 4 or 5 days, whether they earn £20k or £200k.

No problem with it becoming the 'norm' but lots of people will choose to work a day or two elsewhere in that case. Money is useful, if given a spare day many will choose to use it to earn more money.

On the other side many work 2-3 days part time anyway. I work 3 full days then 5 evening shifts elsewhere, adds up to 45-50 hours so not much above a 'normal' 5 day week but for various reasons works better for me.

Really I see such studies as more of a 'benefits of flexible working hours'. Those who want to work 4 can do, ditto those wanting 2 or 6.