Before the forty-hour workweek became a U.S. law, people often worked anywhere from eighty up to one hundred hours per week. Can you imagine? I realize some people still do this, but I just can’t comprehend how they possibly find the time to eat or sleep or have a personal life. Some days I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water with everything on my plate as it is.

Henry Ford is credited with popularizing the forty-hour workweek in 1926. Through his own research, he realized that keeping an employee on the clock for too long did not produce the results that employers hoped for, which of course, was higher production. In fact, not only were the employees less productive after so many hours, but they also made more mistakes and their health suffered as well.

In 1938, Congress made the decision to recognize the forty-four-hour workweek, and ultimately dropped it down to forty hours in 1940. Anything over forty hours per week would be paid at an overtime rate. I applaud this decision to make a legally recognized workweek and properly compensate those who work more than that for their extra time given. 

However, there’s an issue with the forty-hour workweek today because when it was designed, it was still customary at the time for the man of the house to be the sole income, while the woman ran all the errands, did all the chores, and was the primary child-rearer. It was a balanced partnership and everything was taken care of—seemingly perfect on the outside.

But not everyone was happy with this arrangement. Some women wanted the right to work, and I absolutely agree that everyone should be able to achieve their dreams—whatever they may be—regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, or any other factor. But the lingering problem when this change came about was that nothing was adjusted in the expected hours of the workweek to compensate for the lost time in the home. With both heads of household working forty hours a week, how would they keep up with all of the demands of the home?

In addition to this, somewhere along the line, it actually became necessary to have two incomes in order to make ends meet. With inflation and cost of goods ever growing at a faster rate than our wages, it becomes necessary to have two or more incomes to be able to pay all the bills that come in. Even if you live without all the bells and whistles, not many people can get by on a single income anymore (and if you do, I can almost guarantee that means you work more than forty hours a week). Most of us simply can’t survive financially on one income alone.

And yet, with both heads of household working forty-hour workweeks in order to pay the bills, we’re still expected to have enough time to get everything else done as though one of us was still home full-time, dedicated solely to those chores and errands. We don’t have any other choice but to find the time to get everything done, and sure, we figure it out to some extent. We squeeze in a trip to the grocery store on our lunch break, help the kids with their homework while we cook dinner, and make the time to wash and fold laundry after the kids are in bed.

But does this also allow us to feel well-rested and mentally sound? Are we finding the time to do the things we really want to do, the things that bring us joy? Or are we constantly overwhelmed and exhausted, feeling stretched between all the tasks that need completing? Am I the only one who has a constantly growing to-do list that rarely gets a check mark? 

I really doubt it, and am saddened to see finding joy in life become the lowest item on our priority list.

Next Time…

I’ll discuss the mental health effects of the overworked population struggling to make ends meet and find the time to seek joy in life.