<H1>Six-hour work day 'key to bliss'</H1> <div class=author>By Katherine Field</div> <div class=published-date>August 08, 2006 05:37pm</div> <DIV class=article-source>Article from: AAP</DIV> <DIV class="article-toolbar top clearfloat floatright"><STRONG>WORKING four to six hours a day is the key to happiness, according to a new report.</STRONG></DIV> <DIV class="content-column-small article floatleft" id=text-big>In the quest for money and status, Australians are among the hardest workers in the world. <div>But Sydney University academic Dr Caroline West says while work delivers self-esteem, income and social ties, more than four to six hours a day will bring anxiety, exhaustion and a poor quality of life.</div> <div>"We've structured our lives so the majority of our waking life is devoted to work, which might bring us more money but doesn't make us more fulfilled," Dr West said.</div> <div>"So long as there's a trend to work these really long hours you'll continue to see the plateauing and decline of people's wellbeing."</div> <div>Dr West said almost a third of Australian full-time workers worked more than 48 hours a week and 30 per cent worked 50 hours or more.</div> <div>After analysing a range of studies over the past few years, Dr West, who has published her findings in the <EM>Australian Law Reform Commission Journal</EM>, says the idea of a six-hour day is not a fantasy.</div> <div>"I don't see any reason why it can't realistically happen," she said.</div> <div>"It's going to require a lot of structural reform, but I think the time is ripe for addressing it as an issue."</div> <div>She said the concept of the four- to six-hour working day – originally flagged by economist John Maynard Keynes in the early 1900s – would even help productivity.</div> <div>But with competitiveness and the quest to "outdo one another" ingrained in society, most people weren't convinced that working less would make them happier, she said.</div> <div>Dr West's research shows most people would rather work longer hours and have more money than have extra leisure and family time.</div> <div>She said people who don't have money and who don't value work as their number one priority often risked being ostracised, or dubbed as lazy.</div> <div>"It's difficult to be someone who places priority on leisure if you're surrounded by people who just care about money, or care about it more than other things," Dr West said.</div> <div>For now, only a select privileged group with alternatives such as job sharing arrangements could afford the shorter hours, she said.</div> <div> </div> <div><A href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20060290-1702,00.html">http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20060290-1702,00.html</A></div></DIV><BR><BR>Read "Penguins in Bondage":<br>http://happystiletto.blogspot.com/<p>  <hr size=1>Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman1/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=39663/*http://voice.yahoo.com">Make PC-to-Phone Calls</a> to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less.