The 40-Hour Workweek: Profit Over Well-Being

The 40-hour workweek wasn't designed for your well-being. It was designed for profit.

In the 1800s, factory workers routinely clocked 10 to 16 hours a day,

six or seven days a week. Children included. The industrial revolution ran on exhaustion,

and burnout was just the cost of employment. Labor movements fought back hard.

Strikes. Protests. Demands for humane schedules. But it wasn't activism

alone that changed everything. In 1914, Henry Ford made a calculated business

move. He cut his workers' shifts to eight hours and introduced the five-day workweek.

Not out of generosity, but because his data showed something surprising. Shorter hours meant