Over a year into the pandemic, the emperor stands naked when it comes to the reality of working life. Whether we have realized how many drawn-out Zoom meetings really could have been an email or how many cashiers were forced to risk infection to maintain coffee chains’ profits, the absurdities of work have become clearer than ever for many of us. This naturally leads to the question: Why is this pointless toil still eating up such a large chunk of our days?

Fortunately, in a growing number of countries, this question has become more than rhetorical. The prospect of shortened working hours, a long-standing demand for the Left, continues to inch closer to becoming a generally accepted political goal, thanks to years of mobilization and a growing pile of evidence on the benefits of working less.

In Iceland, the Reykjavik City Council, the trade union confederation BSRB, and the national government ran a series of trials of a four-day working week between 2015 and 2019 — the world’s largest experiment thus far in shortening working hours without slashing wages. In June 2021, researchers from UK think tank Autonomy and the Icelandic Association for Sustainability and Democracy released a report outlining their assessment of the trials. The result? An “overwhelming success” — measured by the well-being of workers as well as productivity levels.