Work-Life Balance
In our discussion in class today about work-life balance, I kept thinking about a statistic I once heard about Americans, Europeans, and vacation days. I tried to find it online but I had no success so I will tell you and you can believe me or not. Americans on average are given 2 weeks of vacation or personal days a year, while the European average is more like 4-6 weeks of paid leave (depending on the country). I did find support for this. One website gives the average number of vacation days per country, and another gives the minimum number of paid vacation days per country that a company must give it's employees. I remember when I was in Italy last summer being told by an Italian friend that Italians usually get 6 weeks of vacation time and it would be extremely uncommon for an Italian not to take every single day possible. In the U.S. it's rare for an employee to take the full 2 weeks that they are given. So when we sit around discussing how we all want to have work-life balance, I guess we need to remember that some of it is in our hands. In our society it seems that there is a sense of guilt associated with taking a day off, and personally I don't think that's a positive thing. What do you think about the topic? Is it bad or good that there is a pressure not to ever take a day off work? Do you think it speaks of work ethic or obsessiveness?
posted by Sara at
7:41 PM
3 Comments:
I think that Americans are much more prone to being "workaholics" and that there is huge guilt in taking time off.
I think part of it stems from how competitive we are, and so we are worried that if we miss too much work, we may be replaced. Of course, things like the FMLA protect against that, but who's to say there aren't other consequences?
It's also the employers who are at fault. For example, my sister is an editor in NY and came home for a couple days last week...even though she was given the time off and it "wasn't a problem", she was still either a) on the computer checking her email or b) constantly on the phone with her boss, her authors, their agents, etc. And for some reason she still felt guilty being gone.
It is definitely an obsessiveness with work that most Americans have.
Also, I wonder if your marital/child status has anything to do with amount worked. I would assume that those that are single have a greater loyalty and priority towards work, while those with families may be more inclined to take full advantage of those vacation and personal days.
I was also abroad in Spain and most employees in the major cities there are known to take long mid-day breaks for a relaxing lunch or siesta. The workers were also very loyal to their companies and workplaces and it was uncommon for anyone to want to leave their current position. They would usually buy an apartment near their job and remain in that location for many years. Although I agree with Daya and Americans have the "workaholic" attitude about their work lives. You never hear much about breakthrough industrial technologies coming out of Spain. On the other hand, you often hear of that kind of news from the U.S. or Asia because the employees in these locations would be more hesitant to ever take too much time off from their jobs.
To piggy back off of Jason because I was in Spain over the summer, and like i've said in class i had an internship so i got to experience the working culture first hand.
People in Spain arrive everywhere late always. so they come in to work late then in an hour have a coffee break or a cigarette break and then take a two hour long lunch to eat a three course meal with coffee and dessert and they just sit and enjoy their day. Then they drag all afternoon, mix in cigarette breaks and are at work till 7 most days.
My seminar teacher there told me that Spain has the highest per capita hours of work per week of any country in the EU but one of the lowest total production outputs.
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