Europe or America: where do women work longer hours?
The OECD and Credit Suisse have analyzed the hours worked by women in selected countries. Image: REUTERS/Michael Buholzer
The chart shows the average weekly hours worked by women in various developed markets. And, according to the data, around 65% of American women in the labor force work over 40 hours per week. By comparison, slightly over 30% of women in Germany do, and about 20% of women in France do.
Still, we should note that working more hours doesn't necessarily translate to getting more done.
Notably, a 2014 study by Stanford University's John Pencavel found that "long weekly hours and long daily hours do not necessarily yield high output."
"...this implies that, for some employees engaged in certain types of work, their profit-maximizing employer will not be indifferent to the length of their working hours over a day or week," Pencavel wrote.
Another interesting nugget from the chart is Japan's data. Although female labor force participation in Japan (66.0%) is low relative to some European countries (for example, Germany's is at 72.9%, according to the OECD), the women who do work in Japan work longer hours than their German counterparts.
In any case, check out the breakdown.
More from Business Insider:
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Stay up to date:
Future of Work
Related topics:
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.
