Is Europe ready for a four-day work week? RSU to analyse issue in international study

Researchers from Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) are taking part in the major international study Four4All: Evidence and pathways towards an inclusive, sustainable and competitive working time reduction in Europe. The project will analyse the impact of a shorter working week in Europe at a time when new approaches to work organisation are increasingly being explored. 

The research project has received EUR 3.3 million in funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, including EUR 286,250 for RSU. It will deliver one of the most comprehensive international studies to date on working time reduction across different European countries and sectors. In this project, the reduction of working time refers to introducing a four-day, 32-hour working week without reducing pay. 

Four4All will focus on two key questions: how shorter work weeks affect companies, employees, equality, the economy and the environment, and how working time reduction can be successfully introduced on a wider scale across different countries, sectors and professions. 

The study will combine large-scale data with real-world case studies, stakeholder experience and analysis of the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the future of work. As a result, it will generate data-based evidence for policymaking at European and national level, as well as practical recommendations and tools for organisations considering working time reduction. 

RSU researchers to analyse impact of shorter work week 

At RSU, the study is led by Linda Matisāne, Leading Researcher at the RSU Institute of Occupational Safety and Environmental Health: 

'Reducing working time is closely linked to the quality of the working environment, employee wellbeing and work–life balance — areas that RSU researchers have been analysing in Latvia for several years. 

Our previous studies show that work organisation solutions, including flexible working models, can significantly affect both employee health and productivity. Latvia is still at an early stage in this area — there have been individual, non-systematic attempts by companies to introduce a four-day working week, but it has not yet become a widespread practice. 

The Four4All project will allow us to work together with countries where the four-day working week is already part of everyday practice in many companies, and to bring this experience to Latvia. At the same time, we will gain data-based solutions for implementing working time reduction sustainably across different sectors and countries,'

says Matisāne. 

Nine partners from seven countries are involved in the study. The consortium is led and coordinated by the University of Salford in the United Kingdom. 

Interdisciplinary approach and experience from previous studies 

In implementing this study, RSU will bring together a team of researchers from the Institute of Occupational Safety and Environmental Health and the Department of Health Psychology and Pedagogy. The team will combine expertise in work–life balance, psychosocial risks, occupational safety, employment and public health. This is already the third project in which these two RSU structural units have collaborated, strengthening research capacity and promoting an interdisciplinary approach to developing solutions. 

The foundations for the Four4All project were laid in the earlier BALANCE4LV study, which focused on assessing and promoting work–life balance in the Latvian context and from which the idea for this project developed.