The

The Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Tradition stands firm, two guests and two

segments, but one theme. I needed a break from covering the relentless bloodshed in Gaza and the

ongoing ravages of the Trump regime. So a more diverting topic today, overwork and what to do about it.

We'll hear from Juliet Shore, one of the prime recent instigators of that line of inquiry,

and then Catherine Moose and Noah Martin Viener, who've been studying overwork among teachers.

First, Juliet Shore. In 1992, she published the Overworked American, the unexpected decline of leisure.

It turned out to be quite a hit, both within the economics profession and among a general public.

Needless to say, this is not the sort of thing most economists write about or even think about.

She's been studying work in its various aspects since then, often from a feminist perspective.

She's just out with a new book, Four Days a Week, the life-changing solution for reducing employee stress,

improving well-being,

and working smarter from Harper Business. That subtitle approaches 18th century standards of length.

She and a large team of researchers have been running pilot programs at work sites around the world, and the book is a report of their findings, which are highly encouraging.

Juliet's day job is as a professor of sociology at Boston College.

As I said, her research is not typical for economists, which is probably why she's in a sociology

department.

Juliet's Shore.

I was amazed to learn that Richard Nixon, of all people, was talking about a four-day

week in 1956.

Yeah, that's not something you'd

expected of Richard Nixon. Where'd that come from? Yeah, I agree. There was a widespread

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