I don’t think Working Week should have a direct effect on Productivity. I think it should affect Unemployment (and underemployment ofcourse) which should affect Productivity.
As a side note I think Industrial Automation should effect umeployment even more than it does.
I actually think its quite accurate for working week to have an effect on productivity, although I would argue that the effect should be flipped from its current implementation. As it currently stands, a lower working week reduces productivity in-game, but there has been a lot of research that shows reduced working hours can substantially increase productivity. Here is just one example:
I would argue that the game should reflect this relationship between working hours and productivity. Flipping the productivity effect from the working week would be an easy way to do this.
And I agree that industrial automation should probably have greater economic effects, but I disagree that a bigger effect on unemployment should be one of them. Ever since the time of the Luddites back in the industrial revolution, people have argued that automation would eliminate jobs. As we have seen time and time again in the past 200 years, from the industrial revolution to the digital revolution, this has simply not been the case. I have yet to see any concrete evidence that this would be the case for future waves of automation. Remember that automation tends to unlock greater economic productivity and potential, which leads to a reduction in unemployment by itself.
It very much depends on the sector you are working in, if a shorter work week would increase productivity.
Farmers for example would maybe not be able to work less, while in Factories the increase would be if existent only very little. But in the third sector(e.g. administrative jobs, computer science) the increase could be noticeable.
I think this video is great about the topic:
Yes it should increase productivity, BUT if you get underemployment (which really should be a thing) the decrease in productivity from underemployment should be greater than the increase.
When it comes to automaton you may well be right but I’m not sure. Shouldn’t it increase unemployment forcing the player to decrease Working Week?
It absolutely is dependent on the sector, and generally it is accepted that there will always be some areas of the economy where a shorter workweek wouldn’t lead to increased productivity - agriculture, as you mention, being one of them. However, keep in mind that the service and knowledge sectors make up about 80% of the economy in most developed countries, and these are the areas that would benefit most from a shorter workweek.