Yes, I fully support people's desire to work 20% less hours, if they're willing to take a corresponding 20% cut to total compensation (note that's not the same as a 20% pay cut; benefits are often really expensive).

Right now there are some cultural barriers to this. Many employers aren't willing to be that flexible, and I think that's a shame. I'd love to see 32-hour or even 24-hour workweeks become more normalized as possible options on the job market. There are also probably some legal barriers to this, with a lot of employment laws counting 40 hours as "full time" but I'm not sure how significant a factor that is.

> Yes, I fully support people's desire to work 20% less hours, if they're willing to take a corresponding 20% cut to total compensation (note that's not the same as a 20% pay cut; benefits are often really expensive).

I suspect even a 20% cut in total comp isn't going to cut it (for most jobs). That's because up to a point there's economics of scale in working hours. Ie in many jobs you need to spend a certain amount of time each week just trying to stay in touch with everything else that's happening, but once you paid that cost every extra hour is pure benefit in terms of productivity---up until the point you work so much that you see diminishing returns. But eg going from 30 to 31 hours per week is productive more productive than going from 0 to 1 hour.

However, I didn't even have in mind cutting the amount of hours you work every week. You can make use of the extra productivity and real pay you get these by eg retiring early and then live in modest circumstances. Or you could take sabbaticals every so often. All while still working 40 hour work weeks, when you actually work.