Rudolf also takes into account the effect of gender roles on happiness. In South Korea, women often voluntarily stay home from work, and men are still expected to be the main breadwinners, so women tend to be happier when not working at all than men are.

Results: The Korean Five-Day Working Reform resulted in greater working hours satisfaction for both men and women, meaning they felt better about the number of hours they were working. But they weren’t actually more satisfied with their lives or their jobs in general. Rudolf did not find any significant effects of the policy on life or job satisfaction, noting “these findings are probably not what policy makers had intended when designing the reform.” A for effort, reformers, but we humans are pretty much determined to be unhappy no matter what.

Implications: Rudolf suggests that perhaps workers’ spirits are being crushed in new ways to make up for fewer working hours, like getting less time off for vacation and holidays, or being expected to work more intensely while they are at the office, which can lead to stress, burnout and drinking wine while crying under your desk. There was some evidence that workers whose hours were reduced had increased work intensity, but not enough to be certain that was the cause of everyone’s continued unhappiness.

The study, Work Shorter, Be Happier? Longitudinal Evidence from the Korean Five-Day Working Policy, was published in August in the Journal of Happiness Studies.