The Myth That Americans Are Busier Than Ever

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-myth-that-americans-are-busier-than-ever/371350/?_ga=1.154308414.742779469.1395405048

by jcklnruns • 12 years ago

75 50 12 years ago

theatlantic.com

Malarkey73• 12 years ago

I'm not really sure what this "work-hours" data is capturing.

My parents were teachers and I remember them marking after school and some weekends. My wife is now a teacher and she has after school meetings at least once a week, spends hours marking every night and weekends, plus a lot of her holiday preparing new lessons and admin. Contractually she has the exact same hours and holidays my parents had but her life is nothing like theirs.

For myself I'm a scientist and people have worked long hours since I was a student - but it used to tail off as people got into their 30s and became more secure, maybe got a stable position, teaching, and students of their own. Now this seems to have been pushed back to an ever receding horizon and people work long long hours competing to get the next grant or next placement, to keep their heads above water right up till retirement. Of course academics all contractually work a 40 hour week.

I guess its anecdotal but I see the same sort of things amongst my friends in tech and pharma. Their laptops and mobiles have enslaved them.

Maybe I was blind to it when young but I don't remember my parents generation - their friends, my relatives working like that.

yummyfajitas• 12 years ago

The data looks like it comes from the American Time Use Survey.

http://www.bls.gov/tus/

It's collected via time diaries, not contractual hours worked.

eshvk3• 12 years ago

My parents were teachers and I remember them marking after school and some weekends. My wife is now a teacher and she has after school meetings at least once a week, spends hours marking every night and weekends, plus a lot of her holiday preparing new lessons and admin. Contractually she has the exact same hours and holidays my parents had but her life is nothing like theirs.

Same experience here. This was in the middle of Africa yet students will have to be graded and life has to go on.

Now this seems to have been pushed back to an ever receding horizon and people work long long hours competing to get the next grant or next placement, to keep their heads above water right up till retirement.

In the U.S. academia is not that competitive after tenure (most of the time). Of course, you may have a drive to have students, which may drive you to acquire grants and so on.

I guess its anecdotal but I see the same sort of things amongst my friends in tech and pharma.

My experience in tech has been an upward increase in work load with increase in experience. Funnily enough this has been correlated with greater freedom. The less freedom I had, the more I was inclined to put in my 8 hours and check out. Now, the more the freedom that I have, the more I realize that I am always on and I have to force myself to switch off and do other things.

nowlnowl• 12 years ago

As a European I am always amazed how much the US-citizen work. Very little vacation, very little security and a atmosphere of a very (very very, haha) competetive nature.

Shivetya• 12 years ago

As an American I am always laughing each time I read this. There are people on both sides who choose to work a long number of hours. I would not be surprised to read the numbers are not to dissimilar.

Far too much of this workaholic issue only occurs because people want lifestyles they otherwise could not afford. Two cars, the big house or exclusive location, the island vacations, and such, are not necessary for a happy life. Yet there are many who think so and adapt to make it happen. I don't begrudge them for a minute

mtbcoder• 12 years ago

I will disagree with your first point. As a European who has lived in the US now for over a decade, I can say the OP is correct. Yes, there are people in Europe who do put in long hours, but the overall atmosphere/attitude (for lack of better terms) of work is remarkably different. In the US, you can work without abandon, all day, every day, take no vacation or personal time, neglect your time at home and be hailed as an exemplary for your work ethic. In Europe, the pervasive attitude towards a lifestyle like this is quite contrary to being exemplary. Failing to take vacation time is frowned upon to say the least and often is forbidden depending on your location. Even something a small as working on Sundays will bring disdain from your neighbours. Again, this is not to say that you cannot find the US "work lifestyle" in Europe, it's just that it is not as glorified as it is in the US.

mhurron• 12 years ago

a atmosphere of a very (very very, haha) competetive nature.

I would call it fear. There is very little actual competitiveness in the workforce, but it looks that way as people go about trying to look important as they fear the next guy who can and will do the same job for $1/h less. The fear of taking vacation is part of this, well, for the few that get vacation time.

American priorities are messed up, work yourself to death so you can retire and enjoy life when your too useless to work.

cryoshon2• 12 years ago

Yeah, it's absolutely disgusting how desperate and beaten down the American proliteriat is. We have to ask permission to take vacation or sick days, and both are frowned upon. How long you are seen to be working is a very important statistic for workplace prestige, far eclipsing the actual amount or quality of work done. It's important to be seen working long hours, that way when the lay-offs come (and they will come) you aren't in the "slacker" pile like the people only working 9 to 6. Most people think this is the normal and right way to do things, and are fearful of "lazy" systems practiced by the effeminate Europeans. I'm not exaggerating. People actually think this.

I'm not sure there's anyone with a spine to make it change; when I've raised the issue of unionization to my co-workers I tend to get blank or vaguely fearful stares for bringing up something so untouchably controversial.

cylinder2• 12 years ago

You are right, and not exaggerating; the workplace culture is more toxic than the labor laws themselves.

In the US, the capital is the big winner (business owner, investors, etc.) Labor loses hard -- even if you are a highly paid professional you are still going to succumb to an unsustainable culture that ruins your QOL.

And please, nobody counter this with stories about how your cool startup or tech job isn't like that. I'm talking about the majority, not various niches and exceptions to the rules.

eshvk3• 12 years ago

Oh please, enough with this already. I work in the U.S. for a European company. Those who are competitive are competitive irrespective of nationality or culture; it transcends the atlantic. It is not like there is a magical government employee nature of things in Europe either.

bryanlarsen• 12 years ago

If you include all Americans, not just working Americans, the amount of time spent not working has spiked dramatically. Kids are staying in school longer; the labour force participation rate is dropping as blue collar jobs disappear; people are retiring earlier and living longer.

zhte415• 12 years ago

Recently posted, related article (New Yorker) and discussion (144 comments)

Article: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2014/05/26/14052...

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7769610

jordanb• 12 years ago

This article defines leisure as "time spent not working" and then observes that the underemployed segment of our society gets to enjoy an abundance of (presumably, in large measure, involuntary) "leisure."

onion2k• 12 years ago

"High pay is highly rewarding," Kolbert writes, and in a winner-take-all economy, we're motivated to put in extra-long hours to, well, win.

We trade time for money. If you enjoy your work, and someone is willing to give you a large sum of money for your time, then working long hours makes sense... but only if you couldn't be doing something that you'd like even more than money with that time. For example, a reasonably high level executive position might pay you $250k/year for 20 years - so $5m - but it'd take you away from your family doing business travelling for 2 weeks out of every month. Would you trade a total of 10 years away from your family for $5m? Some people would. I wouldn't.

cryoshon2• 12 years ago

A lot of the time it's not particularly a fair trade, either.

Salaried employees can typically be forced to work upwards of the 40 hours they are officially bartering with for money. The money doesn't scale with time or effort put in, which is one of the contributing causes to burnout and do-nothing-but-still-so-"busy"-ism.

bitL3• 12 years ago

I have a feeling that "being busy" is just a gentle form of crowd control. I could see it in Japan, people being terribly busy at work, yet producing very little, spending most of the time during the day at job, unable to do anything in their spare time. I guess that's how Asian society makes sure there is no unexpected creativity leading to "interesting times". It could also help individual people to cope with social anxieties by being "busy".

I wouldn't be surprised if the same were happening in the States. I don't believe people can be super-productive more than 5 hours a day unless they work on something they are passionate about or are on drugs.

From my experience, just walking away from a difficult problem, taking time to walk in the forest, relax on the beach, playing sports with friends, doing completely unrelated relaxing things with total focus often leads to sudden inspirations on how to tackle difficult problems. It's like life is telling me to relax and rewards me with great ideas that can be immediately executed, for being just well balanced.

I remember flying with one US businessman between Hawaiian islands, and he curiously asked me how many vacation days do I have - when I told him it's 6 weeks, he went on to complain about how crazy is it in the States, with average of 8.5 day or so of vacation per year.

People, please live your lives!

tseabrooks• 12 years ago

Question on those 6 weeks. I've heard before that some countries include national holidays in there 5-6 week count. Is that the case here? Generally when Americans are listing their vacation days they are not including what they view as mandatory holidays (Memorial day, july 4th, thanksgiving, christmas, new years, etc).

FWIW, I'm in the US and we have ~5-6 weeks vacation.

bitL3• 12 years ago

I am currently in Germany, 6 weeks is basically a standard excluding holidays (which is up to 13 extra days depending on the state and weekend overlay as there are no bank holidays). So in the end you can end up with ~8 weeks. Minimum vacation days as specified by the law is 4 weeks.

Most of my friends in the US start with 2 weeks, after a few years they get 3 weeks, then these are reset if they change the job, and if they take a vacation, they are either frowned upon or they have to be available to work on a moments notice. I find this utterly crazy.

alistairSH• 12 years ago

That 5-6 weeks is well outside he norm in the US.

In my experience, to get that much leave, you have to work at the same company for 5+ years. And either be highly-paid white collar OR highly paid union.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/the-unite... http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm

lmm• 12 years ago

UK guy here; it's 5-6 weeks in addition to national holidays (which are normally 8 days/year).

Avshalom• 12 years ago

None of those are mandatory holidays in the US.

dobbsbob• 12 years ago

Highschool I worked for Lufthansa here in North America, it was common to see Germans fly over their bikes to go on a 2 month road trip while on paid vacation.

rayiner• 12 years ago

I don't believe people can be super-productive more than 5 hours a day unless they work on something they are passionate about or are on drugs.

I assume you're a software engineer? It's a particularly mentally intensive job, and I don't think your experience is easily generalizable. Jobs that don't require that level of creativity and where you can rely more on memorized processes are easier to do for extended periods of time. Say you're an insurance adjuster. Most of the claims that cross your desk are not unusual and do not require special handling. I bet you could do that productively for 8 hours a day.

LaikaF• 12 years ago

I can very easily be productive for 8 hours at my second job at a beer distributer.

My other job doing email tech support I struggle to not take a five minute break every hour to clear my head. I still get bellow five hours a day of productivity because I have to sit in a ton of meetings on the off chance that I might need to say something or they just want more eyes on whatever they're doing.

JPKab4• 12 years ago

I've noticed that a lot of the "busiest" people are the least productive. I suspect its a defense mechanism for people who, at least on a subconscious level, realize how unproductive and meaningless their job and/or output at a job really is.

My wife's sister and her husband are both the two "busiest" people you will ever meet. Yet when I spend time with them, I'm reminded of the fact that neither of them is very intelligent (perhaps the wrong word, but put another way they have no depth of understanding about anything outside of their jobs in cargo transport, zero creativity or appreciation of any kind of art, and little to zero knowledge of world events) and they don't seem to progress any quicker in their careers. In fact, as my wife has noted, they have lagged behind us and all of our friends who enjoy a healthy work-life balance. There is nothing scientific here about this anecdote, of course. I think that perhaps the easiest way to be extremely busy all the time is to not step back, take a breath, and think about a more efficient way to accomplish task X.

In a culture where status is attained through work, if you lack the creativity and skills to be a standout wizard who breezes through and builds cool shit that others think they could never do (translations: anyone on HN) then perhaps "busy" is the other way to earn some semblance of status.

mreiland2• 12 years ago

maybe you should stop judging your wife's sister and her husband, and/or start being as critical of yourselves as you are of them.

eshvk3• 12 years ago

Good lord man. The arrogance and superiority complex that you have towards other human beings is breathtaking. I don't know you from heck but I feel the need to become more humble just to reduce the amount of dickishness in the world.

omilu• 12 years ago

It may have something to do with their jobs in cargo transport. Making ends meet on a low paying, physically demanding job that probably has a long commute, and overtime, doesn't exactly leave lots of slack in the schedule to pursue anything much beyond taking care of chores and sleep. I know cause that was me in college.

Dewie3• 12 years ago

It could also help individual people to cope with social anxieties by being "busy".

I can't even tell you how incredibly "busy" I was during recess in high school. Also during free hours and any kind of down time... so much to do!

jff3• 12 years ago

You had recess in high school?

0xdeadbeefbabe• 12 years ago

It could also help individual people to cope with social anxieties by being "busy".

Yes, and sometimes meetings serve only this purpose. For example, oh I'm sorry Mr. X is in a meeting that he has scheduled for every time you call.

forgottenpass• 12 years ago

Here is a blog post by a psychiatrist on work/life balance. Basically: One of our time's great sociological questions is why we filled downtime back up with work, and the reason is it's better than alcoholism.

Try to look past the writing style you probably won't like at first: http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2014/01/randi_zuckerberg.html

michaelochurch• 12 years ago

Work hours have been steady to slightly declining, especially factoring in higher unemployment, longer between-jobs periods, and (one good change) the increase of remote work, as people just get sick of spending 8 hours in an white-painted anxiety-box that, in many cases, has nothing to do with getting work done.

Work-related anxiety has gone way up. People work slightly shorter days (8-9 hours for white-collar workers instead of 9-10) but are a lot more drained at the end of them. In software, this is due to tightly-packed open-plan offices, increasingly unreasonable expectations regarding availability and timeframe, and declining autonomy due to the abuse of technology and processes (like "Agile", which started with great intentions).

The real work has gotten easier (in some cases, so much easier as to be an anxiety-causing factor in its own right, due to boredom) and hours have gone down slightly (but with more variance) but the full-time impression management job has become more competitive, much more mean-spirited, and far more draining.

Watch Mad Men. It explains so much more about white-collar culture than I could ever get into here. At the time, that was the most stressful, painful, and socially demanding white-collar job in the country-- which is why people doing it, by the standards of the time, were paid extremely well. Now, that's the mainstream corporate culture.

bowlofpetunias• 12 years ago

The stats for the Netherlands are partially skewed by the fact that although there is technically a high participation of women in the workforce, but many if not most of them only work part-time. That significantly brings down the average.

ogdenyogly• 12 years ago

This article only focuses on one aspect of "busy" -- working.

The real problem is "time inflation." This is the name given to the fact that there is more to DO than ever because life is generally becoming more complicated, and because companies and government entities have decided to make you responsible for large portions of their business processes as a cost saving measure. Government is always the worst since the relationship is not voluntary.

Some real examples from my own life: * IRS sends me a letter saying I didn't pay taxes from a stock transaction in 2011, tells me I have 60 days to prove otherwise or I automatically owe the money.

* When I was a kid, grocery stores removed the items from your basket and rang them up. Then conveyor belts became more common and you were expected to place your groceries on the belts. Now, some stores don't even have checkers, you scan and bag your own groceries (fresh and easy for instance).

* Target has a security breach and I need to sign up for credit card monitoring and do due diligence, read my statements etc-- the banking industry has created a massively vulnerable payment system which requires my constant vigilance.

* I ordered an electric weed whacker from woot. It arrived broken (I'm already being used as product testing-- they should have tested it not me). Woot won't take it back, they suggest calling the manufacturer. The manufacturer actually asks me if I have a multimeter and screwdriver so I can test various components so they can send me a new part. Buying a weed whacker has now cost me 5 hours of my weekend, as I have become product tester and repair staff.

* Get pulled over for a missing tail light, police officer writes a "fix-it" ticket for "incorrect instrumentation" or some such nonsense. What was weird about this was, the CHP officer who inspected my car said he had NEVER seen a ticket for this before.

* The city I live in apparently goes through your tax returns, and saw that I had $400 of 1099 income. The city defines ANY 1099 income as operating a business and requires me to get a business license and pay taxes on the income, I have to spend a whole day at the city hall getting a business license (I in no way operate a business) under threat of going to jail.

* Apple recalls my phone, I have to make two pilgrimages to the Apple store, each time backing up my phone completely and restoring it. Total cost, 4 hours.

* Anything relating to medical care is a CLUSTER, I could write a novel on just this.

Some more mundane annoyances are simply plays for my attention:

* Despite being very diligent about unsubscribing I get 40 or so emails a day from random companies I have done business with sometime in the last 10 years.

* The USPS brings me junk mail every day that I never, ever look at. It goes straight to the trash. Still about 30 seconds/day goes to this.

MASSIVE time sinks in my life:

* Inadequate transportation infrastructure in my county means I spend needless hours on the road.

* Purposefully poorly designed store ques. In the US most store ques are about 30% less efficient than optimal and all is required is a slight redesign of the area. The correct type of store que is where there is one line that feeds all registers-- in that way nobody can get stuck behind a customer whose taking a long time. (Think Fry's vs. Costco). I shop as much as I can online but cannot purchase groceries online obviously.

While none of these examples is particularly egregious the net effect of this and hundreds of other of annoyances is that I always have something to worry about. All of these companies / government entities waste my time on to infinity because it costs them nothing to do so and I am powerless to stop them.

cylinder2• 12 years ago

* Purposefully poorly designed store ques. In the US most store ques are about 30% less efficient than optimal and all is required is a slight redesign of the area. The correct type of store que is where there is one line that feeds all registers-- in that way nobody can get stuck behind a customer whose taking a long time. (Think Fry's vs. Costco). I shop as much as I can online but cannot purchase groceries online obviously.

Just to let you know, Whole Foods does this in its New York stores. Oh, and you can order groceries online here, Google will deliver stuff from Target, Costco, etc in the same day, public transportation is good and fast. Next time, tell the weed whacker manufacturer to screw themselves and honor their warranty or you'll file a Deceptive Trade Practices Act suit; you're not their diagnostician.

Add to your list: reading social link aggregation sites and writing long comments on them :)

The Myth That Americans Are Busier Than Ever

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