
Should people over 40 work a three-day week? - metafunctor
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/08/should-people-over-40-work-a-three-day-week
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inputcoffee
Did you guys click on the paper itself? This is the scientific equivalent of
clickbait.

[https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s...](https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2016n07.pdf)

As I read it, they didn't even measure working hours directly because "we have
another issue in examining the effects of labor hours on cognitive
functioning, that is, labor hours are censored (that is, retirees report zero
working hours). Rather than directly using variables which correlate with
labor hours, but do not correlate with cognitive functioning, we use these
variables for creating the fitted values for squared of working hours and
working hours as instruments."

And they run a regression to infer working hours from the region they live in,
parent being alive, number of children and so forth.

Let me just get to the main point: I think they're just picking up a decline
in cognition from lack of sleep. If someone is stressed out with all these
obligations, then longer work hours will cut into their sleep.

Also, I don't see how they figure out which way that causality runs: could
those who have good cognitive function afford to work fewer hours than those
who don't?

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notacoward
FWIW, I cut back to 30 hours a week for a couple of years in my late 40s. The
effect on my stress level was phenomenal. The issue wasn't so much the direct
hours worked, but the _flexibility_ that I had to lengthen a weekend or take a
random morning/afternoon off without feeling like I was cheating anyone. It
was also nice not to be on the critical path for every damn thing, which I
think is a continual struggle for most people experienced enough to be in a
leadership role among many more junior developers.

There was a downside, though. Between working less than full time _and_
working from home, I sometimes felt pretty disconnected, marginalized, etc.
Mostly I was OK with that, welcomed it even, but I eventually came back to
full time because I didn't feel like I could drive the things I needed to from
that kind of position.

Overall, I highly recommend it. Just be aware that there are downsides. Like
working from home, there's also a greater need for self-motivation, self-
discipline, and self-reliance than if you're working in a more traditional
arrangement.

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Semiapies
And many employers will read this as "Should you ever hire anyone over forty?"

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nadezhda18
exactly... that's how the age discrimination will start again

~~~
zzalpha
_will start again_

I believe the word you're looking for is "continue".

~~~
mixedCase
Or maybe, not every field experiences ageism from the same end to the same
degree.

Not even in our very ageist software industry is this consistent, if you take
a look at things like mobile or web development when compared to lower level
or legacy stuff.

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dasmoth
Yes, but so should the under-40s.

(If this ends up as a threshold, it will become yet another factor encouraging
the middle classes to delay having children...)

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acconrad
The article's title says a 3-day week, but the actual study more specifically
said a 30-hour week.

Or, put it another way, The Guardian can't even summarize it's own articles
properly, because there was no recommendation as to how those 30 hours should
be split up.

Personally, I'd prefer 5 6-hour days to 3 10-hour days.

~~~
codingdave
I work from home, so am able to set my own schedule, and tend to do something
more like 10-20 blocks of 1-3 hours each, over the course of a week. They are
not evenly spread out... I work when I am energetic and alert enough to be the
most productive, balanced with the responsiveness required to meet the needs
of the business.

~~~
dasmoth
Sounds like heaven to me.

Are there times you have to be available, or are you able to be entirely
async?

~~~
codingdave
Mostly async. There are some tasks that end up getting schedule at specific
times -- conference calls, code deployments (sometimes), etc. But The vast
majority of time is flexible. It really is a great setup for coding.

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delibes
Perhaps they should, but I don't think they could from an employers point of
view.

I'm over 40 and would love to work a 30 hour week. But there is a cost for
hiring each employee and so it's better to have fewer employees working
longer. The cost includes interviewing and recruitment costs, payroll systems,
management time, IT systems (email, systems access, hardware and licenses).

If we could slash all these costs and make it easier and cheaper to hire
people, the 30 hour week might work. It might also make it easier for
companies to fire people though, so less good for the 'youth'.

~~~
grobaru
These costs are banal compared to what your usual medium to large enterprise
is paying in bonuses,benefits and other.

I am coming from Europe and always admired capitalist systems but I think the
americans and others are probably stressing it too much.

I have experienced large US corporations firing people that had 2-3 years till
retirement, people that spent 30years with company and have been replaced with
cheap offshore resources.

I think companies could keep these employees but incrementally decreasing
their salaries and working hours. They could still earn more (overtime) but I
would dynamically adjust the salaries.

I mean anyway...95% people are just slacking at their jobs

~~~
pc86
I vouched for this comment in spite of the idiotic assertion at the end,
because I wanted to raise a question on this point specifically:

> _I have experienced large US corporations firing people that had 2-3 years
> till retirement, people that spent 30years with company and have been
> replaced with cheap offshore resources._

Is there any capitalist argument that a company should hold on to someone who
has become redundant _because_ they have only a small period of time until
retirement? My gut reaction as a capitalist to someone being outsourced at age
63 with 2 years to retirement is "so what" but of course when I think about it
from the human perspective it seems horrible. They either need to find another
job (very hard at that age regardless of the sector, but especially in tech)
or cut their standard of living beyond what they expected _for the rest of
their lives_.

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rileymat2
At some level, maintaining a reputation for humane treatment of workers might
help attract young talent.

In some sense loyalty begets loyalty.

~~~
minipci1321
Do you seriously believe young workers think about the old ones, or about
themselves becoming old workers? If loyalty begets loyalty (to which I agree),
I would expect it to appeal to those who understand what loyalty is all about.
Young generation was told they will have 12 jobs over 40 years of career, and
looks like they have internalised this.

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nfriedly
Heck yes! I'm targeting financial independence by my mid-40s. I don't expect
to stop working entirely at that point, but I do expect to cut back. 3-days-
per-week sounds entirely reasonable to me.

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symmitchry
I'm not trying to disagree with the article here, but I have worked very short
weeks before... and for me I found that 4 days off makes it really hard to be
productive. You're away for so long that you don't even feel like you are a
part of the company. Sometimes I would nearly forget to go to work, it was so
much time off. I would say 4 days (maybe with less hours) is a much better
schedule.

~~~
aninhumer
Perhaps a longer period would work better here. Maybe 6 days a fortnight (say
3/1/3/7?) or even 12 days in a month (say 4/2/4/2/4/12?) so you feel more
continuity during work, but also get regular periods that feel like proper
holidays.

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carsongross
Don't tell the kids (it keeps them feeling productive and important) but by
simply ignoring all the bullshit...

We already do.

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cmurf
I suppose it could work if the employee gets time as their raise rather than a
salary bump. Otherwise the business is increasing cashflow while getting less
time out of the employee.

The cost benefit for the employer and employee is non-linear, so I think we
need a better way to look at employment than either the hourly or salaried
methods. Something that incentivizes 30 hour work weeks (assuming 30 hours is
somehow an optimal compromise for both employer and employee).

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kristianp
Employers wouldn't go for a 30 hour week and there is no modern equivalent to
the power of unions and popular opinion that drove reductions from workers
doing 7 days of work a week down to the 40 hour week. Even a 40 hour week is a
fiction for many knowledge workers.

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pmontra
Many people are not even halfway to retirement at 40. I guess that companies
won't let them go part-time because of the increased cost per hour and
employees won't be happy because of the reduced pension.

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njharman
Everybody (in industrialized nations) should have 3 day work week.

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Broken_Hippo
I would honestly like to agree, but I don't think 3 days works unless you keep
the 8 hour days. 10 hours is a lot of time out of one day. Once you sleep,
commute, make meals, shower, and other such things, there is very little time.
In addition, folks start to really slow down near the end of the day,
especially on the 3rd day.

I believe it to be much better to work 4 days at 7.5 hours a day to reach the
30 hours. This gives some continuity in a workweek and much better productive
time.

I actually support five 6-hour days even more. They are trying this in Sweden.
With nurses, they find stress levels go down, productivity goes up, more self-
reported happiness, and decreased absenteeism.

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coldcode
3 days isn't enough time for all the meetings. But 5 days of 6 hrs might work.
28 hours of meetings and 2 hours of coding.

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eHunterBudd
I think you hit the nail on the head. 30 productive hours is a 60 hour
workweek once you add in all the useless meetings. On a 18 month SAP
implementation I was doing 70 hous a week for 18 months including 3AM calls
with India 4-5 days a week. Totally fried me. It is interesting though, now
that I'm working independently and change my standard rate for meetings, the
number of meetings has gone way down.

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st3v3r
Whatever happened to those productivity gains we got from the 50s and 60s? The
ones that were supposed to make it so we could work two to three days a week?

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rhizome
Red Queen Syndrome[1], those productivity gains also created increased demands
on the workforce.

1\.
[http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/redqueen.html](http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/redqueen.html)

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krapp
I'm 39 and I've still got student loans to pay off - I can't afford not to
work full time. So no, unless the pay is enough.

~~~
pilom
Honestly curious, how? Did you stay on Income Based Repayment forever? Get
multiple Doctorates while deferring payments? Refinanced multiple times? Most
US loans have 10-15 year payment plans so something unusual happened in your
case.

~~~
krapp
I went back to school recently to pursue a programming degree, after being
laid off. I wasn't the oldest person there, either, so my situation doesn't
seem to be that uncommon.

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hclivess
yes, but not in their retarded jobs obviously

