[getoj]

A couple of people have made the point about full-time versus part-time work in Japan, which is actually covered by this [1] MHLW report on overwork.

The graph on the right on Page 1 has an orange line at the top representing the total hours worked per year by an average "ordinary" (meaning full-time) worker.

The red line below that represents the average part-time worker.

The dates are from Heisei 6 (1994) through 25 (2013).

So we can see that as of 2013, the average full-time worker in Japan reported that they worked 2018 hours a year. I'd be interested in seeing comparable statistics for the US and other countries.

[1] https://www.mhlw.go.jp/file/05-Shingikai-11201000-Roudoukiju... (in Japanese)

EDIT TO ADD: It's also worth noting that the increasing blue bars in the right-hand graph represent an increase in the percentage of people in part-time work, which corresponds to a decrease in overall (full- and part-time) work hours in the graph on the left (the blue line). So the arguments about a higher percentage of part-time workers being significant in lowering the average seem to be right.