Is it possible for China to have a four-day work week?

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A newly released report into the leisure time of Chinese citizens has called for the country to adopt a four-day work week by 2030, in a bid to ease the increasingly serious issues of overwork, the lack of a fair work-life balance and dwindling free time for employees in certain industries.

The report, titled “The 2017-2018 Green Book of China's Leisure”, was released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on July 13. It points out that Chinese people now generally lack the free time to spend with their friends and family, to develop hobbies and pursue interests or to simply unwind after work.

The report. /CNR Photo

In order to tackle these issues, the report said that by 2030, China should allow people to work nine hours a day, four days a week.

Before it can be implemented nationwide, the report suggested the country should start experimenting with four-day work weeks in state-owned enterprises in large- and medium-sized eastern Chinese cities during 2020-25, before further expanding the policy to the more regions of the country between 2025 and 2029.

However, the report has become widely discussed on Chinese social media, with many criticizing China’s current deficient policies regarding work. With so few workers being able to regularly confirm they will have two consecutive days to rest, a call to guarantee a definite five day work week first was suggested.

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Overwork is common in China nowadays, especially in the emerging online realm, where it seems that most already employees expect to be given too much work to handle in regular hours. Some employees in e-businesses are required to work from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week, a schedule common enough to be given the “996 mode" nickname.

According to a survey conducted by China Central Television and National Bureau of Statistics, the average leisure time of a Chinese citizen is only 2.27 hours a day – even worse is that this is down from the figure of 2.55 hours a day, which was the average three years ago.

Of the people surveyed, those who work in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have even less leisure time per day, averaging are 1.94, 2.04, 2.14 and 2.25 hours respectively.

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On the contrary, residents of the United States, Germany, and the UK have about five hours a day, nearly double the number of Chinese residents, according to the research.

Moreover, since paid leave in China has not been fully implemented yet, the leisure time that residents already have often comes at a monetary cost.

Therefore, many in China don't see the proposed four-day work week as realistic and believe it won't happen until the country fully implements an official work week system and paid leave policy.

A transformation from a “six-day work week” to “five-day work week”

In fact, China’s implementation of a five-day work week is incredibly recent. It only came into effect 23 years ago.

It was considered as a revolutionary change in 1995 as it was nearly impossible for people to imagine two days of rest per week while the country was being rebuilt following the war and expanding under the policies of reform and opening up.

At that time, people needed to work for eight to ten hours a day and six days a week. However, these ultra-long times weren't efficient and kept productivity low.

Hu Ping, director of the former National Research Center of Scientific and Technological Development, inspired by the five-day work week of some developed countries, began to experiment with this kind of working system at the research center and started to assess whether it would work in Chinese society at large; the experiment was a success.

After Kong Lianyong replaced Hu as the director of the research center, he continued the in-depth research and began to make proposals for the country to change from its six-day work week structure.

The country finally passed his resolution and began to implement the five-day work week. As this provided people with more leisure time, China saw a rapid increase in leisure consumption, significantly boosting the country’s tourism industry.

How do other countries work?

Currently, no country in the world has a four-day work week, but there are some developed countries that work fewer hours.

Netherlands ranks top, as the country that has the least working hours per week. People are only required to work 29 hours per week for an annual wage of 47,000 US dollars, according to the OECD. All workers are given full paid vacation time and the right to reduce their working hours to a part-time schedule if necessary.

Denmark is next, with an average of 33 hours per week with estimated annual wages of 46,000 US dollars. Workers are also guaranteed at least five weeks of paid leave each year.

Norway has the same working hours as Denmark, but with average annual wages of 44,000 US dollars. Workers are granted a minimum of 21 paid vacation days each year and maternity leave can be extended to 43 weeks at full pay or 53 weeks at reduced pay, according to CNN money.

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A two-week experiment recently conducted by a New Zealand company proved that the four-day work week was a “resounding success,” according to CNN Money.

The stress level of the staff decreased by around seven percent and 24 percent of those involved said that they could manage a better work-life balance. At the end of the experiment, the workers believed the working system would become “permanent.”

The employees tended to be more productive and even spent less time on social media or other non-work activities, Andrew Barnes, the CEO of the company, told CNN Money.

Is it still too early to adopt a four-day work week?

The proposal from China’s top think tanks of implementing a four-day work week and reforming the country’s public holiday system by 2030, has once again drawn public attention to the failures of the current system.

Netizens' comments. /Screenshot from Weibo

“Some businesses cannot even guarantee employees a rest during weekends, let alone the four-day work week,” commented @_MissHelen_ on China’s Twitter-like Weibo social media platform.

“Please ensure paid leave and weekends [for us], and then we can talk about a four-day work week,” said @xiaoyaodeshiguang on Weibo.

However, some people looked forward to having a four-day work week.

Netizens' comments. /Screenshot from Weibo

“The four-day work week policy should start tomorrow rather than in 2030,” commented Weibo user @Wangchengyi.

In a survey conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 40.1 percent of respondents said they don't have paid annual leave at all; 4.1 percent said they have it, but can't use it; 18.8 percent said they can have it, but don't have the flexibility to use it. Only 31.1 percent of people said they have it and can fully make their own arrangements.

The failure to fully implement paid annual leave severely hampers people’s right to enjoy their leisure time, further increasing stress levels and decreasing productivity.

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However, in this rapidly developing society, everyone is eager to seize every opportunity in case they are left behind, hence sometimes people get exploited and become overworked.

The four-day work week aims will create more opportunities for employees to take a short break from their stressful work, but, although this is a good idea, if these policies don't get implemented by businesses, how can the authorities expect it to be effective and improve on the current situation?