I find it astonishing how positive Bloomberg tries to spin this:
People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva
-The income range in the US is so large that there are lots of people at the bottom end who have to work multiple jobs. How much does that have to do with the longer work hours, Bloomberg?
Generous pensions in Europe are also a strong factor in discouraging older people from working, the study said. In the U.S., more people over 65 are working than at any point in the past 50 years. The U.S.’s shift from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans makes it harder for Americans to know when it’s safe to retire.
-This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire.
It's a very light analysis from me, so might not be fully true, but I live in the US, now in Europe, and in Canada before that.
You could also say Canada is kind of in the middle.
Well, maybe correlation doesn't imply causation in that case but here is what I can see:
- US > Canada > Europe in terms of opportunities, be it starting salary, end-of-career salaries, and everything in the middle such as promotions, personal growth, etc.
- Europe > Canada > US in terms of social support
- Europe > Canada > US in terms of work/life balance.
And it's interesting to see how things are different and it looks like there IS causation.
- People in the US work more
- The separation between work and personal life
In the US people all have their emails/chats on their personal cellphone, will work on weekends without much reason, will be talking about work with friends more, will show more passion about their company, will show more ambition.
In Europe, people seem to take their job more as a secondary things AFTER their life. Their have less coworkers-friends, they talk less about work, show less ambition about a promotion/new job coming.
- People seem to try harder at lower scale jobs in the US
There is often the excuse of the tips for waiters etc.. but it's the same for customer support and things like that.
When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. People to try as hard to make the extra effort, etc.
Overall you really explicitly see and feel that most people just see their current job as an end state, versus in the US people constantly work hard to reach the next step and have more ambition.
I'm sure it's in part because there are indeed less opportunities (harder to get promotions, salaries varies less, etc.) and it's harder to move from a class to another compared to the US.
That's mostly my feeling, but it seems like it's so obvious... and Canada, really, is in the middle of those 2 extremes.
Here in Finland there has been recent "boom" of pensioners getting part time jobs.
They get something to do and bit of extra money. There is very little stress or risk as they can always fall back on pension. The only weird thing is that this has not happened sooner, as there is very "universal basic income" -like situation going on. It probably has something to do with overall elderly health improvements. And social perception that pensioners should be lightly sedated stay-at-home grandparents.
"Pension discouraging people from working" is at least partially load of bullshit.
> -This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire.
It is very difficult to generalise. In Belgium for example you are legally forbidden to work. If you work or earn more than a very small threshold you lose your state pension. But then the pension used to be good for regular employee, so there was not really a need to work for a lot either.
Really those analysis are like tea leaves reading. You can build whatever story, but at the end of the day each country is a unique snowflake and another country model cannot just be applied.
Take the Belgian model before, so now put an incentive for older generations to work and you realise that another difference with the US is that the unemployment is much higher and you just added additional pressure on the job market.
Dig a bit more and you realise that Belgium has a unusually high level of old generation unemployment because of the specific model (early pension) they used to handle the worst of factory closure. So those people have been written off the job market and putting them back in is just resurrecting the initial problem only worse considering you would need to compensate for the years/decades of missing investment in the affected region/sector.
And working more hours doesn't necessarily mean more income.
I support an AEC firm and the 'architects' (quotes because most have not been licensed yet) typically work 10-12 hour days, sometimes weekends on a salary. Their take home income might be at a certain level but their effective hourly rate is reduced.
Now, there is the argument out there that working those incredible hours can lead to more income since in American work culture a lot of managers see overwork = strong work ethic / good employee (rather than, as I see it, poor planning and utilization of resources).
I've worked crazy hours (80-90 hours/week) in other circumstances but I was paid for each and every one (with OT and double time). It was great money but I burned out eventually and have pursued the 40 hr/week life instead.
All the "25% extra work" is doing is continue to widen the wealth gap. Their input into the economy is exploited by politicians, government, big business and banks. That is why Bloomberg, a well known shill piece for the 1%, is spinning it like a positive.
> This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire.
Very few people retire at 20 or 40; I fail to see why in an era where people are starting to expect to live until their 80s they should stop working at 65. Is it not good for us all to have the contributions, knowledge & experience of those over 65 in the workplace?
Pension plans (public & private) were built decades ago, based on assumptions which no longer hold true; should they not be revisited?
>I find it astonishing how positive Bloomberg tries to spin this:
>People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva
I do not view it as a positive spin. I could take the exact same statement and use it to point out the problem in the US.
Almost everyone I know in the US, regardless of their current income, is trying to get a promotion, simply because one is available.
I had a boss (CTO) who worked in the USA (SV) and the UK he commented that he got about the same amount of work from both teams bear in mind that the UK team was ex civil service :-)
Sadly, and i know this does not apply to all at the lower end of the income scale, you would be shocked at how some people spend the money they do get. Just get into the home rental business and you will see a world that really needs some fixing.
I am still a believer in that you can move up in society but schools fail to teach people to prioritize their expenditures and to separate needs from desires. It is much easier to stay poor than to stay rich.
I am not sure of the European mindset but I do find a lot of new generations never seem to let go of the need to have the latest stuff. I have relatives in the 75+ range and even they are the stereotype of age, even the stove is older than the kids. Yet the younger generations have bought into an ever in debt lifestyle mostly because they never lived through a real depression or war.
> > The U.S.’s shift from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans makes it harder for Americans to know when it’s safe to retire.
Maybe I am misinterpreting but nobody is in a financial position to retire but continues working because of market volatility. Bonds are that volatile, and nobody with half a brain is heavily exposed to stocks if they have a high 6-/low 7-figure 401(k) and are planning on using that money for retirement income.
I'm crushing it. The harder I work, the luckier I get. This is why the US has more billion dollar startups. This isn't my first rodeo. 25% more is nothing, try 50%. Eventually, work will set me free.
How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state.
Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness.
Leaving aside Wall-street the Tech Bubble where people work grueling hours in the hopes of becoming a millionaire, the rest of the US works grueling hours because they need to in order to eat, pay their rent, etc. Telling someone who is working 40+ hours in order to make ends meet that they need to "work less" is tantamount to telling them to become homeless and destitute.
That's exactly it. Dutch workers apparently work the least number of hours per year, yet Netherland is one of the richest, happiest and most productive countries in Europe. The country where people work the most hours in the EU is Greece.
(I realize this Bloomberg article has slightly different figures than the one I remember from another study. Maybe they used different ways to measure this, maybe the situation changed. I think the former.)
I'm about to turn 31, and I make a decent salary as a Senior Software Engineer. I'm deeply considering going to live on a few acres and go full subsistence to avoid this rat race. Software isn't fun anymore, our generation probably won't retire.
The worst part is that crippling medical bills and college loan repayment are destroying us financially.
I think I'd be happier surviving what I can do myself than to keep doing this bullshit much longer.
In most cases is not like they (the Americans) have a choice to work less hours. Vacation time in North America is significantly under the European norm.
When I think of my european colleagues I'm always struck by a little jealousy. They enjoy an unbelievable quality life. They seem to be on vacation all the time and their cities are incredibly pleasant. The US has so far to go. There is no meaningful comparison that can be made by using currency.
>How happy are they working that extra 25%? They are richer, sure. But I don't think being rich is an indicator of your overall state.
They aren't that richer either -- if anything the majority is less rich in standard of living than most western European and nordic countries. Getting some more money in your salary is not worth much if you have to give most of it to medical coverage and basic services.
It seems more interesting to ask Are they any more productive? Even if American companies are more productive, can that be attributed to longer working hours? I'm guessing not, because it is the job if the organization to make its workers more productive. The individual, being locked in his position, has little leverage on his productivity.
I've noticed some people just plain don't understand this mindset. My boyfriend was offered a higher-paying job in a state with lower cost of living but didn't take it. This was an absolute affront to some people we know, because we were turning down "more money!!"
We live more-than-comfortably and are able to save and make stupid impulse buys occasionally. We genuinely love where we live and are happy. For us, it seems just as insane to jeopardize that just for more cash and cheaper rent prices.
Is it even measurable? Some try. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report Americans don't do badly - on par with Germans (who are close to the top as far as Europe goes) and ahead of the UK, France, Italy, Russia (to name the 5 Europe's major economies).
Studying the charts, only 6 counties exist in both info graphics. Some observations;
Switzerland is the happiest country but works the second most hours
Belgium works the third least hours and is at 19 on the happiness chart
* The US is still in the top 15 happiest countries
Happiness and even satisfaction are shallow metrics that make wanting to always take on new challenges with real risks seem like an optimization failure.
I've worked in both Europe and the US, and in my opinion, US workers are far worse off for it. You earn more money in the US, you can advance faster, but you have next-to-no vacation time (and even when you do, you're still often expected to be reachable by e-mail), maternity/paternity leave is pitiful, and you have to pay large health insurance premiums, amongst other things.
I know that isn't the case for everyone, but on average I'd advise someone to take Europe over the US, just for quality of life alone.
To some extent, this is a choice many Americans intentionally make. There are many jobs that offer European-like benefits, working hours, and employment stability in the US (e.g. Federal government jobs and some companies) but these are frequently viewed as undesirable -- it is not a first choice for many people if circumstances offer something better. The tradeoffs tend to be similar to Europe if you take one of these jobs. Lower pay, less opportunity for advancement (these kinds of environments tend to have promotions that are more seniority based), and you have to work with more people that put in the minimum effort required.
The concept of "quality of life" goes beyond the hours you work to also include having the opportunity to go after your ambition, if you have one. Culturally, I think one of the ways the US and Europe differ is that Europe imposes an environment designed to limit expressible ambition to the lowest common denominator, whereas US culture allows much greater variance in ambition. Or to put it another way, if it is your nature, it is easier to be ambitious in the US and easier to be non-ambitious in Europe. But all other things being equal, I prefer having the opportunity to be ambitious. Americans are not required to be ambitious, but many Americans take the opportunity nonetheless.
> and you have to pay large health insurance premiums
This part still bothers me after 10 years in the US. Health insurance might as well be a tax if you have a family or any ongoing health issues. Hearing people say "I don't support universal health care because my taxes would go up" drives me insane. If the proposition was higher taxes but less overall money spent on healthcare then it's a net gain for you. Of course there would still be many issues to resolve (is it 100% public or a public/private mix, how do you control costs, how to you serve the massive rural areas here, how to manage the job losses from removing insurance/billing from the industry etc) but tax increases is a shitty reason not to at least look into it. It also amazes me that the same people opposed to tax increases aren't the ones screaming to remove the burden of health insurance from employers.
There are many things I love about living in the US but I am still often amazed at how much the US accomplishes despite some of these barriers. Perhaps I am naive to assume the US would be even more dominant in the world if we could sort out basic issues that other countries seem to have already resolved.
I think its a lot more than 25%. In Sweden where I work, people are relaxed at their jobs. Coming in at 8.30 am and leaving at 4.30 pm with a full lunch break in the middle is normal. Taking a couple of coffee breaks or ping pong matches and chatting with collegues is normal. There is casual talk all day long and bosses are also leaving work early to pick up children, spend time with the family and just enjoy their lives. I think something around 35 hours is what we do around here, but getting payed for 40 of course.
The American culture honestly seems totally crazy to me. There is a massive difference in how you view yourselves over there. If you dont succeed at making some kind of a career, you feel like losers? Please step out of the matrix a little bit guys. Life is not getting some position in a company so you can work even more. Its about finding happiness.
Higher earning workers in the US work more hours than lower earning workers.
"Between 1979 and 2002, the frequency of long work hours increased by 14.4 percentage points among the top quintile of wage earners, but fell by 6.7 percentage points in the lowest quintile."
There are insinuations in this thread that the reason Americans work more hours is because the working poor have to work long hours to make ends meet. However, "There was no increase at all in work hours among high-school dropouts," from 1979 to 2002.
Americans working long hours is increasingly a higher income phenomenon. Which means those workers have more disposable income they could trade for shorter hours if they chose to.
An old infographic I had bookmarked which shows this pretty clearly: https://i.imgur.com/Vkd1I01.png Also shows that working more != more pay (I'm Dutch, maybe you can see why I bookmarked it)
I would love to live and work in Italy (or any other Mediterranean climate country), but there are simply no [tech] jobs. And what few software jobs there are are not interesting at all and pay very little.
I value my time and I am willing to take a pay cut to live in Europe, but the jobs are not simply there. Why can there be no middle ground? For now, the plan is to work hard and retire early. Real estate price chages in Europe can be considered flat compared to the US.
The number of hours doesn't tell the whole story though. Working cultures differ a great deal. You may put in longer hours, but then it's more laidback, with more socializing etc. whereas somewhere else it's clock-in, work, clock-out, no fooling about.
In the U.S., more people over 65 are working than at any point in the past 50 years
Also, more people over 65 are alive, compared to any point in the past 50 years. Inability to draw insight from data is the 2nd biggest problem of media these days (the first is the linkbait/profit/ad broken business model)
As an American currently working remotely while traveling in Europe I have seen some of this first hand. I think there's pros and cons to the aspects I've observed.
- Probably the most obvious is meals. In most European countries its not uncommon to take a 2-hour lunch break and to take 2-3 hours for dinner. But at the same time, the quality of food is higher, meals tend to be larger social affairs (not something you do alone), and slower more relaxed meals probably aid digestion. This contrasts sharply to the obsession with fast food/quick service meals in the US that are mostly taken alone and on the run. In some cases it was frustratingly difficult for me to find a restaurant with quick enough service that I wasn't feeling like I was letting my own team in the US down.
- Transportation is less car-centric. What this means though is that a lot of people have a longer, if somewhat more relaxed commute. For instance, rather than a 15-20 minute drive if you live "near work", you might have a 10 minute walk + 40 minute train/metro ride. Sure, you /could/ be working on the metro in theory, or checking emails on your phone while walking. But people don't, and in a way that's great. It gives you a few moments of wakefulness where you don't have to focus and you don't have to think about work.
- Holidays. I'm not really sure how this works out in small and broad technical teams like Operations. But it seems like given the amount of holiday time Europeans are granted and take that there's probably someone out on holidays on your team at any given moment. On the other hand, I imagine that there are less stress-related deaths in Europe.
These are all just my first-hand observations, I haven't really dug into the stats around it, but I can imagine how these and other factors could easily lead to an overall reduction in work hours or even productivity vs American workers. On the other hand, I've found Europeans tend to be healthier and happier than Americans, so maybe it's not such a big deal?
Does anyone know of a similar comparison that includes South and East Asian countries? From my personal conversations, those areas will see longer hours AND lower pay than the U.S., and I'd be interested to see that broken down statistically.
A glowing example of how a huge economy can also be a terrible economy . That 25% is only the tip of the iceberg.
If Russia is the fall of communism , USA is the fall of capitalism. Two extremely stupid economic and political models.
Is it a coincidence that both countries have the most rich in the world and a terrible track record on wealth and income equality, workers and human rights ?
I struggle to digest this article. Considering I'm an Italian who has ever worked 40+ hours a week (non tech jobs got me to 60+ hours/wk...). And then, when I lived in England, everyone seemed to be doing at most 35 hrs/wk.
I understand that these are statistics, but I can't really match it to my experience (but, hey, maybe this tells me to complain less and enjoy spare time more!)
Europeans have this shit figured out then. 25% less work means stopping at 3:00PM every day for me (unless you count the difference as block vacations). This would be LIFECHANGING. I get bored and stop concentrating around that time every day as is.
This report is pretty pointless, and is at best a puff piece for an American audience. American workers are some of the most productive workers in the world, but working hours are not the sole reason. Working hours really do not tell you that much on their own.
In Europe, Greece works the most hours, and yet they are hardly an economic success story. French people work fewer hours than British people, and yet France has better productivity measures. Italy works the fewest hours, but they are stuck in an economic mire. Industrial Era British factory workers worked many more hours than British factory workers today, and yet I'm certain that today's factory workers are much better value. There isn't a meaningful correlation to be found around working hours independent of other factors.
I’m from Norway. It has always been something of a given, from our perspective, that Americans work on average more hours per week than we do. It’s something you hear all the time. Also, that in the U.S. it’s more common to relocate for a job, and, accept longer commutes.
I have a full-time position, and work a maximum of 37.5 hours every week.
Read a previous study on this same topic, and they hypothesized that it was due to cultural differences. In the US, socialization happens mostly through coworker interaction, and people's worth is assessed by the job you have and the money you make. Where as in Europe, socialization happens mostly out of work, in bars, coffee shops, etc. And people's worth is judged more from their hobbies, knowledge and social qualities.
I thought that was a pretty good hypothesis. It even reflects in the political tendencies each place demonstrate. A lot of people in the US aspire to be CEOs or rich, most people in France for example aspire to have a good glass of wine on the coast of France playing bocce ball all day.
To give some context, the other study I refer to found that Americans are happier when they work longer, while European were happier when they worked least.
[+] [-] ajmurmann|9 years ago|reply
People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva
-The income range in the US is so large that there are lots of people at the bottom end who have to work multiple jobs. How much does that have to do with the longer work hours, Bloomberg?
Generous pensions in Europe are also a strong factor in discouraging older people from working, the study said. In the U.S., more people over 65 are working than at any point in the past 50 years. The U.S.’s shift from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans makes it harder for Americans to know when it’s safe to retire.
-This sounds less like people in Europe are "discouraged" from working, rather than many Americans must work longer because they can't retire.
Edit: Formatting
[+] [-] jypepin|9 years ago|reply
Well, maybe correlation doesn't imply causation in that case but here is what I can see:
- US > Canada > Europe in terms of opportunities, be it starting salary, end-of-career salaries, and everything in the middle such as promotions, personal growth, etc. - Europe > Canada > US in terms of social support - Europe > Canada > US in terms of work/life balance.
And it's interesting to see how things are different and it looks like there IS causation.
- People in the US work more
- The separation between work and personal life In the US people all have their emails/chats on their personal cellphone, will work on weekends without much reason, will be talking about work with friends more, will show more passion about their company, will show more ambition. In Europe, people seem to take their job more as a secondary things AFTER their life. Their have less coworkers-friends, they talk less about work, show less ambition about a promotion/new job coming.
- People seem to try harder at lower scale jobs in the US There is often the excuse of the tips for waiters etc.. but it's the same for customer support and things like that. When you call cust sup in Europe, the service is way worst. People to try as hard to make the extra effort, etc.
Overall you really explicitly see and feel that most people just see their current job as an end state, versus in the US people constantly work hard to reach the next step and have more ambition.
I'm sure it's in part because there are indeed less opportunities (harder to get promotions, salaries varies less, etc.) and it's harder to move from a class to another compared to the US.
That's mostly my feeling, but it seems like it's so obvious... and Canada, really, is in the middle of those 2 extremes.
[+] [-] vlehto|9 years ago|reply
They get something to do and bit of extra money. There is very little stress or risk as they can always fall back on pension. The only weird thing is that this has not happened sooner, as there is very "universal basic income" -like situation going on. It probably has something to do with overall elderly health improvements. And social perception that pensioners should be lightly sedated stay-at-home grandparents.
"Pension discouraging people from working" is at least partially load of bullshit.
[+] [-] adwn|9 years ago|reply
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNzXze5Yza8
[+] [-] gutnor|9 years ago|reply
It is very difficult to generalise. In Belgium for example you are legally forbidden to work. If you work or earn more than a very small threshold you lose your state pension. But then the pension used to be good for regular employee, so there was not really a need to work for a lot either.
Really those analysis are like tea leaves reading. You can build whatever story, but at the end of the day each country is a unique snowflake and another country model cannot just be applied.
Take the Belgian model before, so now put an incentive for older generations to work and you realise that another difference with the US is that the unemployment is much higher and you just added additional pressure on the job market.
Dig a bit more and you realise that Belgium has a unusually high level of old generation unemployment because of the specific model (early pension) they used to handle the worst of factory closure. So those people have been written off the job market and putting them back in is just resurrecting the initial problem only worse considering you would need to compensate for the years/decades of missing investment in the affected region/sector.
[+] [-] JBlue42|9 years ago|reply
I support an AEC firm and the 'architects' (quotes because most have not been licensed yet) typically work 10-12 hour days, sometimes weekends on a salary. Their take home income might be at a certain level but their effective hourly rate is reduced.
Now, there is the argument out there that working those incredible hours can lead to more income since in American work culture a lot of managers see overwork = strong work ethic / good employee (rather than, as I see it, poor planning and utilization of resources).
I've worked crazy hours (80-90 hours/week) in other circumstances but I was paid for each and every one (with OT and double time). It was great money but I burned out eventually and have pursued the 40 hr/week life instead.
[+] [-] abysmallyideal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeveb|9 years ago|reply
Very few people retire at 20 or 40; I fail to see why in an era where people are starting to expect to live until their 80s they should stop working at 65. Is it not good for us all to have the contributions, knowledge & experience of those over 65 in the workplace?
Pension plans (public & private) were built decades ago, based on assumptions which no longer hold true; should they not be revisited?
[+] [-] BeetleB|9 years ago|reply
>People earn a wider range of incomes in the U.S., so “workers have an incentive to try harder to move up the job ladder because a promotion is worth more,” said Dora Gicheva
I do not view it as a positive spin. I could take the exact same statement and use it to point out the problem in the US.
Almost everyone I know in the US, regardless of their current income, is trying to get a promotion, simply because one is available.
[+] [-] walshemj|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|9 years ago|reply
I am still a believer in that you can move up in society but schools fail to teach people to prioritize their expenditures and to separate needs from desires. It is much easier to stay poor than to stay rich.
I am not sure of the European mindset but I do find a lot of new generations never seem to let go of the need to have the latest stuff. I have relatives in the 75+ range and even they are the stereotype of age, even the stove is older than the kids. Yet the younger generations have bought into an ever in debt lifestyle mostly because they never lived through a real depression or war.
[+] [-] pc86|9 years ago|reply
Maybe I am misinterpreting but nobody is in a financial position to retire but continues working because of market volatility. Bonds are that volatile, and nobody with half a brain is heavily exposed to stocks if they have a high 6-/low 7-figure 401(k) and are planning on using that money for retirement income.
[+] [-] exadeci|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nether|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] webaholic|9 years ago|reply
Looking at [1], you can see that people in european countries come out on top of the happiness index. One could argue that working less is actually better for productivity and overall happiness.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-23/these-are-...
[+] [-] mbillie1|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mcv|9 years ago|reply
(I realize this Bloomberg article has slightly different figures than the one I remember from another study. Maybe they used different ways to measure this, maybe the situation changed. I think the former.)
[+] [-] wmccullough|9 years ago|reply
The worst part is that crippling medical bills and college loan repayment are destroying us financially.
I think I'd be happier surviving what I can do myself than to keep doing this bullshit much longer.
[+] [-] AlexeyBrin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smrtinsert|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|9 years ago|reply
They aren't that richer either -- if anything the majority is less rich in standard of living than most western European and nordic countries. Getting some more money in your salary is not worth much if you have to give most of it to medical coverage and basic services.
[+] [-] dilemma|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Acanthae|9 years ago|reply
We live more-than-comfortably and are able to save and make stupid impulse buys occasionally. We genuinely love where we live and are happy. For us, it seems just as insane to jeopardize that just for more cash and cheaper rent prices.
[+] [-] V-2|9 years ago|reply
Is it even measurable? Some try. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report Americans don't do badly - on par with Germans (who are close to the top as far as Europe goes) and ahead of the UK, France, Italy, Russia (to name the 5 Europe's major economies).
[+] [-] big_youth|9 years ago|reply
Switzerland is the happiest country but works the second most hours Belgium works the third least hours and is at 19 on the happiness chart * The US is still in the top 15 happiest countries
[+] [-] criddell|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m0llusk|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anotheryou|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SmokyBourbon|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] untog|9 years ago|reply
I know that isn't the case for everyone, but on average I'd advise someone to take Europe over the US, just for quality of life alone.
[+] [-] jandrewrogers|9 years ago|reply
The concept of "quality of life" goes beyond the hours you work to also include having the opportunity to go after your ambition, if you have one. Culturally, I think one of the ways the US and Europe differ is that Europe imposes an environment designed to limit expressible ambition to the lowest common denominator, whereas US culture allows much greater variance in ambition. Or to put it another way, if it is your nature, it is easier to be ambitious in the US and easier to be non-ambitious in Europe. But all other things being equal, I prefer having the opportunity to be ambitious. Americans are not required to be ambitious, but many Americans take the opportunity nonetheless.
[+] [-] knz|9 years ago|reply
This part still bothers me after 10 years in the US. Health insurance might as well be a tax if you have a family or any ongoing health issues. Hearing people say "I don't support universal health care because my taxes would go up" drives me insane. If the proposition was higher taxes but less overall money spent on healthcare then it's a net gain for you. Of course there would still be many issues to resolve (is it 100% public or a public/private mix, how do you control costs, how to you serve the massive rural areas here, how to manage the job losses from removing insurance/billing from the industry etc) but tax increases is a shitty reason not to at least look into it. It also amazes me that the same people opposed to tax increases aren't the ones screaming to remove the burden of health insurance from employers.
There are many things I love about living in the US but I am still often amazed at how much the US accomplishes despite some of these barriers. Perhaps I am naive to assume the US would be even more dominant in the world if we could sort out basic issues that other countries seem to have already resolved.
[+] [-] matrix_escape|9 years ago|reply
The American culture honestly seems totally crazy to me. There is a massive difference in how you view yourselves over there. If you dont succeed at making some kind of a career, you feel like losers? Please step out of the matrix a little bit guys. Life is not getting some position in a company so you can work even more. Its about finding happiness.
[+] [-] jackcosgrove|9 years ago|reply
"Between 1979 and 2002, the frequency of long work hours increased by 14.4 percentage points among the top quintile of wage earners, but fell by 6.7 percentage points in the lowest quintile."
There are insinuations in this thread that the reason Americans work more hours is because the working poor have to work long hours to make ends meet. However, "There was no increase at all in work hours among high-school dropouts," from 1979 to 2002.
Americans working long hours is increasingly a higher income phenomenon. Which means those workers have more disposable income they could trade for shorter hours if they chose to.
http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html
[+] [-] NietTim|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snovv_crash|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donretag|9 years ago|reply
I value my time and I am willing to take a pay cut to live in Europe, but the jobs are not simply there. Why can there be no middle ground? For now, the plan is to work hard and retire early. Real estate price chages in Europe can be considered flat compared to the US.
[+] [-] V-2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slavoingilizov|9 years ago|reply
Also, more people over 65 are alive, compared to any point in the past 50 years. Inability to draw insight from data is the 2nd biggest problem of media these days (the first is the linkbait/profit/ad broken business model)
[+] [-] tristor|9 years ago|reply
- Probably the most obvious is meals. In most European countries its not uncommon to take a 2-hour lunch break and to take 2-3 hours for dinner. But at the same time, the quality of food is higher, meals tend to be larger social affairs (not something you do alone), and slower more relaxed meals probably aid digestion. This contrasts sharply to the obsession with fast food/quick service meals in the US that are mostly taken alone and on the run. In some cases it was frustratingly difficult for me to find a restaurant with quick enough service that I wasn't feeling like I was letting my own team in the US down.
- Transportation is less car-centric. What this means though is that a lot of people have a longer, if somewhat more relaxed commute. For instance, rather than a 15-20 minute drive if you live "near work", you might have a 10 minute walk + 40 minute train/metro ride. Sure, you /could/ be working on the metro in theory, or checking emails on your phone while walking. But people don't, and in a way that's great. It gives you a few moments of wakefulness where you don't have to focus and you don't have to think about work.
- Holidays. I'm not really sure how this works out in small and broad technical teams like Operations. But it seems like given the amount of holiday time Europeans are granted and take that there's probably someone out on holidays on your team at any given moment. On the other hand, I imagine that there are less stress-related deaths in Europe.
These are all just my first-hand observations, I haven't really dug into the stats around it, but I can imagine how these and other factors could easily lead to an overall reduction in work hours or even productivity vs American workers. On the other hand, I've found Europeans tend to be healthier and happier than Americans, so maybe it's not such a big deal?
[+] [-] gervase|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kilon|9 years ago|reply
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM
A glowing example of how a huge economy can also be a terrible economy . That 25% is only the tip of the iceberg.
If Russia is the fall of communism , USA is the fall of capitalism. Two extremely stupid economic and political models.
Is it a coincidence that both countries have the most rich in the world and a terrible track record on wealth and income equality, workers and human rights ?
Nope
[+] [-] sguav|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdc0589|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a_humean|9 years ago|reply
In Europe, Greece works the most hours, and yet they are hardly an economic success story. French people work fewer hours than British people, and yet France has better productivity measures. Italy works the fewest hours, but they are stuck in an economic mire. Industrial Era British factory workers worked many more hours than British factory workers today, and yet I'm certain that today's factory workers are much better value. There isn't a meaningful correlation to be found around working hours independent of other factors.
[+] [-] johnohara|9 years ago|reply
Why would Bloomberg release this as news?
[+] [-] LVB|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikbye|9 years ago|reply
I have a full-time position, and work a maximum of 37.5 hours every week.
[+] [-] didibus|9 years ago|reply
I thought that was a pretty good hypothesis. It even reflects in the political tendencies each place demonstrate. A lot of people in the US aspire to be CEOs or rich, most people in France for example aspire to have a good glass of wine on the coast of France playing bocce ball all day.
To give some context, the other study I refer to found that Americans are happier when they work longer, while European were happier when they worked least.