8 hour work days vs 10 hour work days?

Question

I am looking for a productivity study that shows either no decrease or no change to productivity when workers change for an 8 hour five day work week structure to a 10 hour four day work week structure.

Answer 1

A true politician in the making, looking for studies that support your position, rather than asking what the honest studies show.

When Ford cut its work-day from 9 hours to 8 back in 1914, it saw worker productivity improve:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_...

These among the many articles arguing for a 4-day week recently. They all stress reduced fuel consumption, etc. None actually dares claim with evidence, no change in productivity:

http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/...

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008...

Is it just by chance that these are mostly government offices, where costs are easy to measure but results hard?

There aren't all that many studies of people who have been doing it and comparing:

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=main...

And, admittedly, even the most diligent and honest research would be hard to trust, given the fundamental difficulty of the task:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_e...

Answer 2

U really do not need studies to show this.You can just go to a work week of 20 hrs each for two days a week ( with two one- hour breaks after 7 hours and again after 14 hours). Workers leave for home after 22 hours. This will save costly fuel on traveling to & from office.