The Most Overworked Workers In The World

​As Americans, we work too many hours.  If you do not believe so, we have the data points comparing us to our peers worldwide.

Americans Are The Most Overworked Workers In The World
By Pierre Mouchette | Bits-n-Pieces

As Americans, we work too many hours.  If you do not believe this, look at the following data points that compare us to our peers worldwide.
 
The American Work-Life Balance

• For the year ending 2021, the following statistics were reported by the U.S. Bureau of Statistics
  • At least one parent was employed in 89.1 percent of families with children
    
    
  • Among married-couple families with children, 96.5 percent had at least one employed parent, and in 62.3 percent of these families, both parents were employed
    
    
  • Among families maintained by fathers, 81.7 percent of the fathers were employed, and 71.2 percent of mothers were employed in families supported by mothers
    
    

• The U.S. is the ONLY country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit.  The average leave bis over 12 weeks anywhere other than Europe and over 20 weeks in Europe
  
  
• Zero industrialized nations are without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave.  That is, except for the United States

 
Average American Work Hours

• At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not
  
  
• In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours  per week
  
  
• According to the ILO, Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers

 
American Paid Vacation Time & Sick Time

• There is no federal law requiring paid sick days in the U.S.
  
  
• The U.S. remains the only industrialized country with no legally mandated annual leave
  
  
• In every country except Canada and Japan (and the U.S., which averages 13 days/year), workers get at least 20 paid vacation days.  Every year, they get paid for 30 days off, an entire month in France and Finland

 
The Impact of Too Much Work
I’m not telling you to work fewer hours.  If you genuinely love what you do and are doing it for the right reasons, you are more than entitled to spend all your waking hours plugging away.
But for many of us, more work leads to more stress and a lower quality of life.  Without time to unwind, take care of your home, spend time with loved ones, enjoy your hobbies, connect with friends, and generally live a more balanced life.  Stress is the #1 cause of health problems – mentally and physically.  And few things stress us out consistently like work does, especially when it takes away from all the other things life offers.
 
Americans are the Outliers
And if all of this data tells anything, it is that we are the outliers, not the norm.  Why are we the outliers?

• Our companies fairly ruthlessly let people go.  We want to keep our jobs and not be a ‘low performer’ compared to others
  
  
• The decline of the union has led to less paid time off and other leave benefits
  
  
• The cultural value of money over everything else.  We love money, want more, and think money can buy happiness.  And the more we work, the more we get paid
  
  
• Our legislative branch of the government (on both sides of the aisle) has been bought and, as a result, has shied away from passing laws that protect workers that every other industrialized nation has approved
  
  
• We generally don’t fight for our working rights. We take what is given to us