Working Hard? Hardly Working
The current issue of National Geographic Magazine features an interesting one-page piece entitled “A Work-Weary World.” The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tracked the annual hours worked around the world in 2003 and came up with some interesting findings:
- South Korea, 2,390
- Czech Republic, 1,972
- Poland, 1,956
- Greece, 1,938
- Mexico, 1,857
- Slovakia, 1,814
- Australia, 1,814
- New Zealand, 1,813
- Japan, 1,801
- Spain, 1,800
- United States, 1,792
- Hungary, 1,777
- Canada, 1,718
- Finland, 1,713
- Portugal, 1,676
- United Kingdom, 1,673
- Ireland, 1,613
- Italy, 1,591
- Sweden, 1,564
- Austria, 1,550
- Belgium, 1,542
- Denmark, 1,475
- Germany, 1,446
- France, 1,431
- Netherlands, 1,354
- Norway 1,337
While the full data set doesn’t appear to be easily available online, you can access a description of the study’s sources and a report on year-to-year percentage changes. Michael Boyer’s report on the study indicates that “once a nation cultivates wealth, work hours tend to drop.”