More than eight out of 10 public administration workers agree with the four-day week, but there are also those who refuse the measure for fear of loss of quality of services and lack of conditions to carry it out.
These data are the result of a survey on the organization of working time in the public administration, carried out between July and September 2023 with a sample of 14,232 workers from 649 public entities and whose results were released today by PlanApp – Planeamento, Políticas, Prospetivas.
In response to the question of whether the working week should be reduced to four days, with no reduction in pay, 54.62% of respondents said they totally agreed, to which was added 30.04% who said they agreed with the measure, for a total of 85%.
This adherence to shorter working hours stems from the fact that most workers feel they lack time for themselves and their families, and also because they find it difficult to reconcile their professional, personal and family lives most days.
According to the survey, 51% of workers say that they don’t have time for their family during the working day and almost 60% feel that they don’t have time for themselves or their hobbies.
Reducing the working week to four days is, however, rejected by 3% of respondents, and of those who disagree, “a large part do so because they don’t see the possibility of this reduction, particularly without loss of quality of service”, while others (28%) disagree because they don’t consider it necessary.
Among those who disagree with the four-day week, there are also those who do so because of issues of “fairness and equity in relation to other workers (in the private sector) and fears about how this reduction will be implemented (possibly more burdensome for management and workload)”.
According to the study, it is among managerial careers and those associated with higher education and scientific research that there is a greater propensity to refuse a reduction in the working week. Among those who disagree, it is mainly men and people aged 55 or over.
Of the more than 14,000 workers who responded to the survey – corresponding to around 2.7% of the total registered in the State Organization Information System (SIOE) as of March 31, 2023 – around 70% are women, 65% are aged 45 or over and nearly 71% have at least a bachelor’s degree.
Although the sample covers the different ministerial areas, it is not proportional to the weight that each of them has in the universe of central administration, and there are careers (such as firefighters, magistrates or prison guards) for which the final sample did not provide sufficient information.