Good morning!
As various companies dabble with four-day workweek experiments, one major international city is gambling that flexible work will solve for more than just overworked employees.
The Tokyo Metropolitan government will begin to allow staffers to work four days a week beginning in April of next year, writes my colleague Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez. That’s particularly significant in light of the fact that it’s one of the country’s biggest employers. The agency is also beefing up their child care leave benefits, allowing some people to work fewer hours a day in order to better balance their household responsibilities.
“We will continue to review work styles flexibly to ensure that women do not have to sacrifice their careers due to life events such as childbirth or child-rearing,” Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said in a speech last week, the Japan Times reported.
Like some other countries in the world, Japan is currently experiencing low birthrates. Eight straight years of decreasing birth numbers has contributed to fears of a shrinking population, which could impact the economy. The government has thrown all sorts of potential fixes at the problem, but the crux of the dilemma is likely a combination of hard-working culture and a major gender gap. Japanese women do five times the amount of unpaid work as men, which includes child and elder care, according to a 2024 report from the International Monetary Fund.
It’s not just Japanese women who are struggling right now. Working women in the U.S. scored lower than men when it comes to wellness across every single metric measured, including physical, mental and emotional, and financial wellbeing. Flexible schedules and the ability to work remotely have often been suggested as a way to help women in particular juggle the responsibilities of work and home life. It’s also worth noting that there are some major potential pitfalls for women when it comes to remote work. But companies with hardline RTO mandates are losing women talent.
The promise of remote work, of course, is appealing to all kinds of workers. One study that tracked employees in the U.K. working four days a week found that it reduced staff turnover, and improved physical and mental health. Another study in Germany found that workers on that schedule got more sleep and felt less stressed than their peers. Individual companies have also tested it on their own, with great success.
Most workplaces are still hesitant to actually break away from their traditional five-day schedule. So all eyes are on Tokyo to see how their experiment works out—and what that could mean for everyone else.
Azure Gilman
azure.gilman@fortune.com
Today's edition was curated by Emma Burleigh.
