Talk:Workweek and weekend

Around the world

• Historically Christian countries in Europe and the Americas, and also countries in East Asia have a Monday through Friday workweek.
• [There is a Sunday through Thursday workweek in] Jordan.

This is a fact. --Jak123 (talk) 06:45, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

• However, in secular Turkey and Lebanon the workweek is Monday through Friday, as in Western countries.
• When looking at an Indonesian calendar, Sundays are marked red which indicates that weekends in Indonesia are Sunday. This generally applies to the public schools in Indonesia. Despite this, most civil workers do have weekends starting on Saturday
• Israel has its workweek from Sunday through Thursday, accommodating the Jewish majority whose weekend Sabbath (see below) is Saturday , and the Muslim minority whose weekend is Friday. Nevertheless, many businesses are not completely closed on Friday, but rather close at noon.

History

• The notion of a weekly rest is ancient. The Jewish Sabbath, known as Shabbat, is from sunset Friday to when it is fully dark on Saturday. Sunday has traditionally been viewed as a Christian Sabbath, though not all Christians acknowledge it as such.

Restored. This is adequately documented in the Shabbat article which is wiki-linked. Philhower (talk) 18:22, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

• The weekend as a time of leisure is a rather modern invention. Before the industrial revolution the wage labour force was a minuscule fraction of the population. The day of the Sabbath was viewed as one dedicated to God, not one of relaxation, and strict prohibitions on permissible activities were enacted.

I'm not sure what this is contending. If it is asserting that only the wage labour force practiced the Sabbath, I believe it to be incorrect. If it is asserting that the day was recognized, but in a way that didn't involve relaxation, I believe it is also incorrect. The existence of people claiming "Saint Monday" as a day off in the premodern era after the excesses of a late night partying on leisure-filled Sunday testifies that medieval Sundays were used for leisure.^[1] Sondra.kinsey (talk) 19:08, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

• The French Revolutionary Calendar allowed decadi, one out of ten days, as a leisure day.

Restored. This is adequately documented in the French Revolutionary Calendar article which is wiki-linked. Philhower (talk) 18:22, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

• The early industrial period in Europe saw a six-day work week with only Sunday off, but some workers had no days off at all. The labour and workers rights movements and campaigns by trade unionists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw a five-day work week introduced as Saturday became a day of rest and relaxation. This movement began in England. The term "English week" is used for the five-day work week.

Economic impact of the weekend

• The weekend has led to increased consumer spending on Saturdays as a restaurant visit, motorcar journey, or a trip to the movies has become standard Saturday fare. At the same time, developed economies have shifted manufacturing jobs to service jobs, due to increased industrial productivity or migration of manufacturing to lower-wage countries.
• Many jurisdictions continued to enforce strict blue laws on Sunday which meant that most recreations, such as stores and theatres, were forced to close on that day. These regulations began to weaken in the years after the Second World War and Sunday also became a day of recreation for many.
• In recent years the weekend has begun to fade in importance. While most people work a five day work week, when the hardware costs outweigh human costs, the competitiveness of the modern economy means that leaving a factory idle or an office unmanned for two days is of too great expense. Thus many workers regularly work during weekends. Since this is seen as a greater burden most employers pay extra for weekend work, either by agreement or by legislation, or else give time off midweek.
• There is still great variability in many areas between the workweek and weekend. Stores that are reliant on office workers will see far less business on a weekend, while those in the suburbs or in residential areas will see far more. Since weekends are days where people can safely sleep in and also not have to worry as much about the ill effects of a hangover, Friday and Saturday nights are the busiest for bars, restaurants, clubs, and cinemas. There is substantially less activity on many websites during weekends.

Weekends for students

• For students, the weekend means that they are free for two days where they can relax and further their hobbies after the work during the week, as schools usually do not have classes on the weekend. However, some boarding school students are required to attend classes for at least a half day on Saturdays. Some colleges also offer courses that meet on Saturday and Sunday.
• Also, in some cases there are school holidays or national-nationwide holidays in which public school and/or rarely some boarding schools do not have classes and the students are free to relax and have spare time. In Indonesia however, weekend for most public school students is only on Sunday.

Individual facts from this collection can be returned once verifiable, reliable third-party sources are found. It shouldn't be too hard. Also stick to facts, not weasel words. —Werson (talk) 14:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Opening line

Someone keeps editing the first sentence of the "Weekends for students" section. This sentence correctly reads as follows: For students, the weekend means that they are free for two days where they can relax and further their hobbies after the work during the week, as schools usually do not have classes on the weekend. Someone has edited it more than once to replace "free for two days" with "free for three days." The first sentence describes the situation most students have, which is a two-day weekend. The rest of the paragraph describes exceptions, which include the fact that some students have to attend Saturday classes (giving a one-day weekend) and the fact that some students can arrange their schedules to avoid Friday classes (giving a three-day weekend). Again, the first sentence describes the normal sitaution with a two-day weekend, and it should be left that way. --Tkynerd (talk) 18:48, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Students are not employees and by definition do not work. They are not compensated for their efforts nor do they have a Boss. They do not get overtime when cramming for exams. This section has no business being in this wiki. Students do not pay employment taxes or receive entitlement to unemployment. Most are still dependent upon their parents or subsidized by their respective governments. They do not labor and are not involved in the labor market. "The workweek and weekend are those complementary parts of the week devoted to labour and rest respectively."

All that is irrelevant to the section you erased, which is about the student's weekend as opposed to their scheduled classes. Diego (talk) 14:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Weekend for Students moved

I'm moving the section 'weekend for students' under the paragraph on the US. It seems very American-centric, and certainly the way of choosing courses in universities both in Germany and in the UK is very different from this. Further to this, the source is an article about US colleges and universities and doesn't mention any other countries. So while it may be the case is other countries as well, we'd need sources to support that. And besides, in European student towns, every night is 'Friday night'! --Woodgreener (talk) 15:12, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Muslim Countries

The reference to the GCC countries moving to Sat/Sun to accommodate financial markets is correct. However, the suggestion that this was controversial because of the Jewish Sabbath is absolutely ridiculous. Not everything is Muslim vs. Arab. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.73.135.91 (talk) 13:58, 27 November 2010 (UTC) This presumably intends to say Muslim vs. JewSondra.kinsey (talk) 18:59, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Italy

Why does Italy have its own section? Its workweek is the same as the UK's, or the US's, and there's no reason to think that it would be different from any European country. For that matter, why does the Netherlands have its own section? Can't we just have a "Europe" section? Or a "Western Civilization" section, and then list any exceptions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.200.52 (talk) 07:46, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

There are differences between pretty much every European country, sometimes slight, occasionally quite substantial.

I personally find it easier to have each country listed in alphabetical order, with a complete description of the country's working hours, rather than a large section listing each country's differences from "the norm", which I would challenge you to define. At least I try (talk) 05:18, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

Hong Kong

I'm unsure about Hong Kong. When do the inhabitants of Hong Kong have some rest or fun if they have to be at work or school every day? If they really do, I don't want to argue, it's just a question, but I'm afraid it isn't. Cheers, Ferike333 (talk) 20:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be some information >>here<< about the workweek in Hong Kong, but the source seems very old (1999). Does anyone have more recent sources? Krazywrath~ (talk) 00:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Oman

There is contradictory information on this page about the weekend days in Oman. Could somebody verify the actual days? Phexxa (talk) 07:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC) Weekend days in Oman are Thursday and Friday. That's today May 25th 2010, Could change in the future, who knows... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.33.106.4 (talk) 11:35, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Sunday opening in EU

There is no constraint on shops opening on Sunday in the EU, it's a fiction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.237.184 (talk) 13:18, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I cannot confirm this. At least in Germany, many shops have to close on Sundays. There are exceptions, though, and the whole thing is subject to debate and might change in a few years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.77.4.129 (talk) 07:20, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Canada

Canada's workweek practices are identical to those of the United States (including the so-called "blue law" provisions in some jurisdictions). This information should probably be added, but it's not clear to me whether it makes more sense to just expand references to "United States and Canada" and "states and provinces" (as is often done elsewhere on WP) or add a new independent Canada entry alphabetically, with essentially the same information. Lambda(T) (talk) 17:31, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

If they are exactly the same, then I agree with having "US and Canada" as a section.

If they have any differences at all, then separating them makes more sense. Either one would be better than the current situation where Canada is curiously and conspicuously absent from the list. At least I try (talk) 05:29, 31 January 2026 (UTC)

China confusion

How do we synchronize the two statements "In China, the work week begins on Monday and ends on Friday" and "Normally, the Chinese consider the work week to begin on Monday and end on Sunday". There seems to be a lot of contribution. --RobertGary1 (talk) 00:08, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I take it you mean contradiction. I took out the part about Monday to Sunday as it basically contradicted the rest of the paragraph. The entire paragraph is unsourced, but I don't think it's majorly wrong. I presume the Monday to Sunday is referring to the week rather than the work week. In Chinese and China, Monday is normally considered the first day of the week akin to the ISO standard but unlike in a number of other languages, countries or cultures where Sunday is often considered the first day of the week even though it's the weekend (well these are sometimes related). See Names of the days of the week, Monday and Sunday. From what I saw, none of the other countries mentions the week and I'm not sure how much relevance this has to the article. While I can't speak for China in particular, people who work shifts or non standard days or 7 days of the week (which is likely more common in China than most of the developed world) will still often consider or at least be aware of the normal weekend the weekend even if it has little relevance to them. China does also have the week long holidays which are made up for my working extra days, often without a weekend but again this isn't part of the standard work week so I'm not sure it belongs in this article. Nil Einne (talk) 19:10, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

South Africa

The section where it says that the workweek day is 14 hours seems dubious and anti-ANC slander... According to the department of labour website, it doesn't state anywhere that 14 hours is allowed, even the overtime guidelines stipulate that no one is allowed to work over 12 hours - Allen5924 (talk) 14:22, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Soviet Union Math?

The section for Soviet Union says: "Before the mid-1960s there was a 42 hour 6-day standard working week: 7 hours Monday to Friday and 6 hours on Saturday."

Unless my math is horribly wrong, (7*5)+6=41. Should it say 41 hours or 7 hours on Saturday? I don't know which is correct.

Gnat (talk) 13:21, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

37.5 hours in UK

I would suggest that the working week for the UK be amended to 37.5 hours, this is the standard amount in the public sector and also I believe pretty common in the private sector too - and I wouldn't be surprised if it was the number of contracted hours for the majority of British workers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cimex (talk • contribs) 23:19, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know about the public sector, but 40 is almost universal for most full time workers. 82.153.96.29 (talk) 23:42, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I would say 40h is more common than 37.5h — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.14.189 (talk) 17:17, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Finding a reliable reference for Jordan weekend

I know for sure that the weekend in Jordan was changed from Th/F to F/Sat somewhere around 2000. However, for the life of me, I couldn't find a reliable news source about this. If you have access to a reference, please help. All I found for now is some Christian website cheering the change (which I have added as a reference). --Jak123 (talk) 06:49, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

I was able to get an answer from API archives through the StackExchange community (although it cost me 100 points :). --Jak123 (talk) 06:46, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Brunei

Is Brunei the only country with a two-day weekend consisting of 2 non-consecutive days? One would think that it would be a religiously satisfactory albeit otherwise inconvenient compromise in some countries.Gentleman wiki (talk) 23:08, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Germany

In the table it says, Germany has 38.5 hours a week. As a German myself, I think, that's debatable, since the "short Friday" varies from industry sector to industry sector and even from company to company. However, that's not a chartered right, so I'd write it as something like "40 (sometimes 38.5)" Minilexikon (talk) 11:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Further ist says for Germany: "The working week is Monday to Friday". This is wrong! Legally the working week is Monday to Saturday in German employment law. This follows from the Arbeitszeitgesetz (Working Hours Act) and the Bundesurlaubsgesetz (Federal Leave Act). In practice many people will only work Monday to Friday, except cashiers, waiters, ... 2.207.250.226 (talk) 18:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

The complete section for Germany is missing citations. 2.207.250.226 (talk) 18:09, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion split between articles

Proposals for workweek reform are oddly split between this article and Working time#Gradual decrease in working hours. The heading "Gradual decrease in working hours" in that article is obviously inappropriate in that implies a descriptive section rather than a discussion of proposals and debates. I would contend that the "Working time" article is more appropriate to contain discussion of these proposals, and the content in this article should be moved there. Sondra.kinsey (talk) 19:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

21-hour workweek

Why is this article promoting a random proposal to move to a 21-hour workweek? I'm sure many people and groups have proposed a wide variety of changes to the workweek. I see no evidence that this proposal (or the New Economics Foundation) is particularly prominent or that there's any prospect of any country enacting it. Binarybits (talk) 16:26, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Note that the proposal is balanced by the opposing view from . Per WP:LEAD and WP:NPOV, both sides of controversies should be mentioned in the introduction section. Thank you for your original deletion some weeks ago which indicated that the view was controversial. Additional independent WP:SECONDARY references discussing the proposal have been added. 71.215.64.125 (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

I note this section has been deleted again from the intro, even though it was balanced by studies from each side of the political spectrum. I'm considering replacing it with . In the mean time mentioned WP:LEAD requirements for controversy summaries in introductions at User talk:Binarybits#Workweek. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 20:16, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Nobody said that the text about the 21-hour workweek was non-neutral or unbalanced. The objection is that this specific proposal is not sufficiently prominent to merit a mention in the lead. Therefore, you miss the point by arguing that it's balanced by inclusion of a contrary view. That's like driving 120 mph and arguing that you can't be ticketed because your tail lights are in working order and your license is not expired. --Amble (talk) 21:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

How do you measure the prominence of this controversy? It is mentioned in every secondary source on the topic I have seen. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Look at the sources cited by the article. There are plenty of them that don't mention the New Economics Foundation or its proposal. Heck, one of the sources cited in the text about the NEF proposal doesn't even mention the NEF or its 21-hour proposal (see the SF Chronicle article ). --Amble (talk) 22:41, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

How would you re-word the description of the controversy so that it doesn't depend so heavily on the most recent such proposal to get a lot of international press? 75.166.200.250 (talk) 00:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

In general, I would summarize the history of working hours in the western world, the movement to limit the work week, and the 40-hour (plus or minus) standard that arose from it in many countries. Then say that there have sometimes been proposals that an even shorter workweek would bring social and economic benefits. I don't really see a controversy here; the facts that the article needs to present are not in dispute. Instead, we have various policy proposals that can be described in a straightforward way. I think (from some of your posts above) you may have in mind the guidelines for dealing with really controversial subjects where the basic facts are themselves in dispute. This article is not such a difficult case. I think everyone can agree on the facts; the article body can give the details; and the lead should summarize the article body. In this article, I think the first thing is to substantially expand the History and Reform sections (which could perhaps be merged). Work on the lead can follow. It would be great if you can take a shot at expanding the History and Reform sections or the lead. --Amble (talk) 18:43, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I've added a bit to the intro. Edit away... --Amble (talk) 19:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I think there's a substantial difference between a historical overview and a current events controversy. WP:LEAD says the latter belong in introductions. An important part of the WP:NPOV policy is that when we present controversies, we show the perspectives from both sides of the issue. Simply saying that there are proposals for change does not indicate that they are controversial or show the different points of view on them. 75.166.200.250 (talk) 22:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

It says that prominent controversies should be included in the lead. As you note, a few proposals for change (that haven't been widely adopted) don't amount to a controversy at all, much less a prominent one. A controversy requires something more than a simple difference of opinion among a few people or groups. And the NPOV policy certainly does not mean that every opinion anyone has ever held must go into the lead of every marginally related article. That's determined by prominence and evaluation of due weight. The NPOV policy does not by any means short-circuit these considerations. Again, following one policy doesn't mean you can ignore the others. --Amble (talk) 22:48, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I am unable to find a single secondary source on the topic which does not describe the length of the workweek as essentially the only controversy associated with it. There are review articles devoted entirely to the controversy. There are meta-analyses, also WP:SECONDARY sources devoted to the controversy as well. Federal mandates are involved in the U.S. Implications involve millions of dollars just in single states. The implications of the controversy are also the subject of controversy which in turn have run for decades now. Every sub-sector of the economy is affected by the controversy. Is there any evidence that the controversy is not prominent? 75.166.200.250 (talk) 09:05, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, it sounded as though you were still talking about the NEF 21-hour proposal in particular. Why don't you go ahead and edit the intro in accordance with the sources you just mentioned? It's still not clear to me that there's a prominent controversy relative to the overall topic of the article; but I'm not sure it's fruitful to talk about this in the abstract. I'd like to see your edits. In case it makes things any easier, I'll commit now only to discuss, and not to remove any text you add to the article. --Amble (talk) 15:39, 21 July 2012 (UTC)