--- title: Study Finds the 'Optimal' Length of a Workweek (and It's Not 40 Hours) description: 'Duke University researchers analyzed how much would people want to work if they could choose their total hours. Hint: The answer wasn''t 40.' authors: - name: Pete Grieve role: Lead News Reporter url: https://money.com/author/pete-grieve/ bio: Pete Grieve is a personal finance reporter. In his time at Money, Pete has covered everything from car buying to credit cards to the housing market. education: University of Chicago, BA Political Science at_money_since: 2022 articles: 610 covers: - Career Advice - Banking - Business - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes social: - https://twitter.com/pete_grieve - https://linkedin.com/in/pete-grieve-b5aa02138 - https://www.facebook.com/petegrieve4 editors: - name: Julia Glum role: Managing Editor url: https://money.com/author/julia-glum/ bio: Julia Glum joined Money in 2018 and specializes in covering financial trends that affect everyday Americans' wallets. She also writes Dollar Scholar, a weekly newsletter that teaches young adults how to navigate the messy world of money. education: University of Florida at_money_since: 2018 articles: 454 covers: - Career Advice - Banking - Business - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology also_seen_in: - Newsweek - International Business Times - CBS News - Good Morning America - WUSA9 - Pix 11 - The New York Times - Mashable - The Washington Post - CNBC - Politico social: - https://x.com/superjulia - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-glum published: '2026-10-28T14:57:29.000Z' modified: '2026-10-28T14:57:29.000Z' section: Career Advice tags: - News word_count: 474 canonical: https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/ type: NewsArticle source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Photo-collage of a clock with a small figurine hanging onto the seconds hand](https://img.money.com/2025/03/News-Optimal-Hours-Work-Week.jpg) Most employees don't have much say in the length of their workweek: A full-time position stipulates a certain amount of hours, and that's how much you have to work. Period. But how much would people *want* to work if they could choose their total hours — even knowing that less work means less pay? In a March 2025 working paper shared by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Duke University economists analyzed data from Germany and found that the "optimal" workweek is 37 hours. The [paper](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33577/w33577.pdf) draws findings from the German Socio-Economic Panel, a long-running dataset that includes the following question: "If you could choose your own working hours, taking into account that your income would change according to the number of hours: How many hours would you want to work?" The researchers found that, based on folks' responses, more than two-thirds of sampled workers can be considered "overworked." That means their desired hours (37.5 per week on average) exceed actual hours (42.7 per week on average). The paper also considered a 1991-2008 dataset from the U.K. that asked workers if they'd prefer more or fewer hours, as well as similar (but even older) U.S. government surveys. In these datasets, respondents' desired hours weren't recorded. Still, the data suggests that people in the U.K. and Germany share a preference to work fewer hours, "while the U.S. sharply differs, featuring a much larger fraction of workers wishing to increase hours," the Duke researchers wrote in the paper. ## Is a 40-hour workweek too long? In the U.S., the idea of the 40-hour workweek was cemented in 1940 under revisions to the Fair Labor Standards Act. It requires overtime of at least one and one-half pay for employees who work over 40 hours. However, under U.S. laws, there are exceptions for "professional" and "administrative" employees, meaning that people earning more than $35,568 annually are not necessarily entitled to overtime pay. Despite the "norm" of the 40-hour workweek, it's very common in the U.S. for people to work more than 40 hours per week. Prior studies have shown that [Americans have worse work-life balance](https://money.com/americans-work-hours-vs-europe-china/) than workers in some European countries, working 400 hours more per year than Germans, for instance. Some other countries have explored shorter or more flexible work schedules in recent experiments. In April 2025, tens of thousands of government employees in [Tokyo](https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/06/asia/tokyo-government-4-day-workweek-intl-hnk/index.html) were permitted to work four days per week. Japan's low fertility rate has been cited as a motivation for the experiment. Some German and Australian companies have also [offered](https://apnews.com/article/fourday-workweek-companies-stress-9ab1fa9371636cdbeaeaed32ac8c18dd) four-day workweek options. While some groups have suggested a four-day workweek in the U.S., the idea is more of a dream than reality, at least for now. According to a [Gallup report](https://www.gallup.com/workplace/658235/why-americans-working-less.aspx), the average full-time worker in the U.S. reported a roughly 43-hour workweek in 2024, down only slightly from 44.1 hours in 2019. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Career Advice", "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Work-Life Balance", "item": "https://money.com/work-life-balance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Study Finds the 'Optimal' Length of a Workweek (and It's Not 40 Hours)" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/", "name": "Study Finds the 'Optimal' Length of a Workweek (and It's Not 40 Hours)", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2026-10-28T14:57:29.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/optimal-workweek-length-hours/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2026-10-28T14:57:29.000Z" }, { "@type": "NewsArticle", "headline": "Study Finds the 'Optimal' Length of a Workweek (and It's Not 40 Hours)", "articleSection": "Career Advice", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2025/03/News-Optimal-Hours-Work-Week.jpg", "width": 2880, "height": 1920, "caption": "News-Optimal-Hours-Work-Week" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Pete Grieve", "url": "https://money.com/author/pete-grieve/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/pete-grieve/#author", "description": "Pete Grieve is a personal finance reporter. 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