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THE FIVE-DAY WEEK

tion of the five-day week in certain industries is its connection
 with Jewish religious practice. The orthodox Jew is
forbidden to perform work on the Hebrew Sabbath, which
extends from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.
Although economic necessity of conforming to existing conditions
 of life and labor and the tendency toward a more
liberal interpretation of orthodox principles have resulted
in wide-spread disregard of the religious precept, the more
orthodox members of the race, particularly the religious
leaders, have seen in the advent of the five-day week an
opportunity to re-establish the strict observance of the faith,
and consequently have lent strong support to the movement
for the shorter work week.
It has already been remarked that the earliest instance of
five-day week operation discovered in this survey owed its
origin to a desire to observe the Hebrew Sabbath. It has
also been noted that a considerable majority of the instances
of five-day week operation were found in the vicinity of New
York City, which contains probably the largest urban concentration
 of Jewish population in the world. Furthermore,
most of the companies in New York that observe the fiveday
 week are in the garment industries, in which Jews predominate
 both in the managements and among the employees.
 It is evident, therefore, that its relation to the
prescribed observance of a cardinal requirement of the
Hebrew religion has been an important factor in the growth
of five-day week operation and is likely to continue to stimulate
 its spread in the future.

Tue LencTtH oF THE Working Day
The assumption is made by many persons that a fiveday-week
 schedule of work necessarily means a 40-hour
work week. This linking of the two is probably due, in the
main, to the fact that they have been combined in the demands
 of organized labor, and also because the Ford Motor
Company operates on this weekly work schedule. But there
1s no more inherent reason why the five-day week should be
limited to forty hours than that the five-and-one-half or
six-day week should necessarily consist of forty-four or fortyeight
 hours. As a matter of fact, outside of a few industries