>Where else in the world people dont spens most of their lives at work?
I've worked in some manufacturing domains where unions negotiated the ability to essentially opt-out of large amounts of the work year. There were people who would take off Nov-Feb to essentially focus on families during the holidays, hunting, etc.
I think, to a certain extent, the fact that we're highly productive yet have an expectation to work constantly is a measure of our value systems. (Obviously, highly context and culturally dependent.)
In MOST other first-world countries, the working class has the RIGHT to elect to work less than 40 hours/5 days per week (in exchange for a proportional reduction in salary). In some cases, you must be a parent to be eligible for this.. but yeah, in places like New Zealand and The Netherlands, if you don't want to work 5 days a week, you don't have to.
Fair enough, but unless the other guy was just being tongue-in-cheek, I took the spirit of his question to be more like "where in the world is it different from the US?"
> In MOST other first-world countries, the working class has the RIGHT to elect to work less than 40 hours/5 days per week (in exchange for a proportional reduction in salary)
I work for a large swedish company in USA. None of my coworkers in sweden work less than 40 hrs, like not even one.
So is having that choice really relevant and does it really make it different than USA.
I'm not familiar with the laws of Sweden, but a quick Google search suggests there is a law on the books limiting the workweek to 40 hours. Even if that is only marginally-heeded, it's leaps and bounds ahead of the United States.
If Swedish residents can work fewer than 40 hours at their discretion, why is it you think most in your circle do not take advantage of this?
Qualtrics released the results of a survey recently stating that 92% of Americans are in favor of a 4-day workweek (that's not necessarily 32-hours)[1]
> If Swedish residents can work fewer than 40 hours at their discretion, why is it you think most in your circle do not take advantage of this?
Maybe because they want the money and working 40hrs isn't so bad? But i really have no idea.
That survey isn't directly related to your original point about working less than 40hrs.
If you are claming that its much different in other countries mere existence of some law isn't enough, it would be a stronger point if you had quoted how many people are actually taking a paycut in those countries in exchange for a day off.
Also sounds like you haven't really looked into laws of MOST first world countries ( whatever that means) yet you made that claim without any proof.
I've worked in some manufacturing domains where unions negotiated the ability to essentially opt-out of large amounts of the work year. There were people who would take off Nov-Feb to essentially focus on families during the holidays, hunting, etc.
I think, to a certain extent, the fact that we're highly productive yet have an expectation to work constantly is a measure of our value systems. (Obviously, highly context and culturally dependent.)