“Hopefully something about this recession might help us to begin to think about what the important things in life are,” Mr. de Graaf said.

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Already some workers have reacted to the furloughs with more stoicism than bitterness.

While a single mother in Sacramento complained that the state furloughs would force her to give up smoking, her only luxury, furloughed employees around the country have said that they see small sacrifices as necessary to prevent larger ones. Another California employee was using the time off to watch her daughter ride horseback.

There is a counterargument, though. Critics who support the idea of shorter workweeks in theory say a recession is not the time to force them on workers. Stagnant wages, said Thea Lee, policy director for the A.F.L.-C.I.O., have already made time off unaffordable. “Normally you would expect that as society gets wealthier, their wages rise; and as their wages rise, people work less,” Ms. Lee said. “Since we’ve ruptured that connection between wages and productivity growth, people have no choice but to work more to maintain their standard of living, and even that hasn’t been enough.”

In an ideal world, said Juliet Schor, an economist at Boston College and the author of books on labor, leisure and consumerism, shorter working hours would be voluntary, and workers would be compensated for any increased productivity. But even forced furloughs could provide more time for family, community, learning and volunteering, unless people must scramble to fill the time with a second job. Smaller paychecks, she said, would “dampen down the competitive consumption that’s associated with the high-hours economy,” leading to a sustainable way of life.

Employers, too, may find collateral benefits to furloughs. Studies show that reducing work hours can increase productivity per hour. Atlanta has recorded fewer sick days, and work crews have saved time because they set up and break down four times a week instead of five, said David Edwards, a policy adviser to Mayor Shirley Franklin.

Such results have precedents. During the Great Depression, Kellogg’s instituted a 30-hour workweek that was so popular vestiges of it lasted until the mid-1980s. Within two years, productivity had reached 40-hour levels, said Benjamin Hunnicutt, a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa and the author of “Kellogg’s Six-Hour Day.” Morale improved, and 85 percent of workers liked the change despite the lower pay, he said.

Other studies have shown that vacation, leisure time and shorter hours reduce stress and physical ailments like heart disease  though those ills can pile up again if you can’t pay the mortgage or the car mechanic.