I think the discussion should be reframed into household hours worked. It fundamentally changes the discussion. A couple working 4 day work weeks amounts to 1.

I think the discussion should be reframed into household hours worked. It fundamentally changes the discussion. A couple working 4 day work weeks amounts to 1.6 FTE, which is considerably more compared to the traditional breadwinner model. Now if you add that life got a whole lot more demanding/complex outside of work, the sum work load of a family is rather high instead of low. Another interesting aspect we see in the Netherlands, where we work part-time a lot. Perhaps a little too much. There's a kind of defeatism regarding working more hours. People feel it doesn't really change their life for the better. When you're already settled, can pay the bills and have reasonable disposable income, working more doesn't really improve your quality of life in a very tangible way. Young people are even more apathetic. They figure they can't ever afford a home anyway, and with a pension age heading towards 70, they conclude they can't ever retire. In light of this, might as well maximize free time here and now. Society wants you to work more to combat the population ageing or to compete with China, but on the ground people don't care about this call to arms. The societal contract is broken.