Is the four day week coming to South Korea?

An elderly public servant died a year before retirement, after working 12 hours a day for months and bemoaning burnout. A 41-year-old delivery worker died after constantly working more than 10 hours a day, six days a week, and complaining to a colleague that he was working hard “like a dog.” A court judge — a working mom of two — collapsed and died at home after writing online that she often had to work past three in the morning. “I wonder who’ll find me if I collapse,” she wrote then. Deaths like these have made frequent headlines in South Korea for decades that they even have a name: Kwa-ro-sa, which literally means “death by overwork.” Victims often die from heart attacks or strokes, having worked themselves to death. A 2020 study also found a correlation between extreme working hours and elevated suicide rates.

To ease the misery of such overworked workers — and to encourage more young people to have a family — South Korea is now gearing up for a new experiment: four-day workweek. The newly-elected president, Lee Jae-Myung, proposed during his campaign a  4.5-day workweek with a goal to eventually switch to a four-day workweek to ensure more humane working hours  and lives  for the country’s 50-million populace.   

Having been introduced in many countries from Iceland to Germany, the four-day workweek is however still considered a very radical idea in South Korea — which has one of the world’s longest working hours. An average worker in South Korea clocks in 1,872 hours a year — far higher than the average of 1,742 hours among the member nations of the OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) or 1,343 hours in Germany. That means an average South Korean worker works — based on a typical 8-hour workday — over two months more per year than their German counterpart.

Such ultra-long working hours and the notoriously workaholic corporate culture were once credited for driving the country’s rapid economic growth through the 1970s and 90s and helping South Korea become a global economic powerhouse today. But now they are blamed for South Korea’s rock-bottom birthrates, currently the world’s lowest at 0.75, as many young people see having a decent work-life balance or having a family as an unaffordable luxury. 
 
The problem takes a major toll on women. Married women in the conservative South take the lion’s share of childcare and household chores, meaning they shoulder the crushing double burden of long working hours and domestic responsibilities. Companies often discriminate against female job seekers on the grounds that women won’t be able to clock in long working hours once they marry or have a child, prompting many young women to reconsider having a family. 

One hope tied to the four-day week is that it might change that.

 “Studies show that the four-day workweek has a particularly positive effect on women,” said Kim Jong-In, director of the Korea Worker Institute and Union Center, in an interview with Women News. “If women have to take care of the children, they can do it without having to worry about what the boss will say. Their quality of life will improve — more than men’s. But men will also have to take on more care work going forward.”

 Bae Jin-Kyung, head of the Korea Women Workers Association, said in a speech last year: “We live in a society where women have too little time for paid work — and men are forced to spend too much time at the office.”

 How quickly the four-day or 4.5-day workweek might become reality — if ever — remains uncertain. But what is clear is that President Lee’s proposal has sparked a national conversation.

“Studies show that the four-day workweek has a particularly positive effect on women”

With boosting the birth rates a top policy priority, officials are hoping that shorter working hours - and subsequent better quality of life — will push more young people to change their mind (Lee also promised to cut the overall working hours below the OECD average by 2030). 
    
 Several recent experiments on the four-day workweek showed some hope. In one hospital in Seoul, the number of nurses who quit fell by one third, patients’ satisfaction level rose and nurses reported far fewer symptoms of sleep disorder or depression than before. The province of Chungnam also allows public servants with little children to work four days a week (under the condition they work 10 hours each day to make up for the lost day) after its pilot program last year with those with babies — the first in the public sector — drew calls among employees to expand the program. 
 
The change is not without controversy. Companies say that a pay cut is inevitable with the reduced work hour, while labor unions and Lee demand the change with the same pay. A recent survey showed that six out of 10 South Koreans support the four-day workweek. But another showed that only 44 percent support the idea if it involves a pay cut.   
 
In the meantime, Lee promised state financial support for companies moving to a 4.5-day workweek, calling for “bold policy change” for “sustainable work-life balance.”
 “South Korea achieved great accomplishments through economic industrialization and political democratization. But now, we have to advance to the next stage where each South Korean is guaranteed a good quality of life,” Lee wrote on social media. 

 It may be too early to tell if the new experiment will succeed. But there is no shortage of cases showing the urgency of the issue at hand. Just this week, a staff member of Lee’s presidential office collapsed at work and was sent to hospital — due to overwork.