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Do We Stress Ourselves To Excess In The U.S.? 10 Countries That Best Balance Work & Life & We're Not On The List

Paris : France | Jun 02, 2011 at 6:07 AM PDT

By Veronica Roberts

7 0

June 2, 2011]-----I stumbled across this article, 10 Countries That Balance Work & Life Better Than Us and was intrigued that the United States is not on the list.

We love to say we are the best country on earth but I'm sure that people in these 10 countries would beg to differ!

What is our benchmark for judging happiness? Life's balance? Obviously ours differ to some parts of the world for after looking at variables like income, housing, work and lifestyles, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) compiled their findings in Better Life Initiative and sadly, we didn't make the list.

Below are the 10 countries the OECD though best balanced work and play:

10. France

Work Life Balance Index: 7.0

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 16.06 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 68 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.09 percent

9.Portugal

Work Life Balance Index: 7.7

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 15.80 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 67 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.05 percent

8. Germany

Work Life Balance Index: 8.0

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 16.14 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 66 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.05 percent

7. Sweden

Work Life Balance Index: 8.1

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 15.48 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 76 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.01 percent

6. Switzerland

Work Life Balance Index: 8.2

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 15.74 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 79 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.06 percent

5. Belgium

Work Life Balance Index: 8.4

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 16.61 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 63 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.04 percent

4. Finland

Work Life Balance Index: 8.4

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 15.95 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 76 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.04 percent

3. Netherlands

Work Life Balance Index: 8.7

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 16.06 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 75 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.01 percent

2. Norway

Work Life Balance Index: 8.8

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 16.05 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 79 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.03 percent

Drum roll please: and the number oe place that is closest to that Utopia we all are striving for is......

1. Denmark

Work Life Balance Index: 9.1

Time devoted to leisure and personal care: 16.31 hours

Employment rate of women with children: 78 percent

Employees working very long hours: 0.02 percent

Read the entire article by clicking link below:

10 Countries That Balance Work & Life Better Than Us

1 of 2

Balancing work and play: 10 countries that do it well

Balancing work and play: 10 countries that do it best-alas, the U.S. is not one of them

Veronica Roberts is based in New York City, New York, United States of America, and is an Anchor for Allvoices.

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Post a Comment Comments: 14

Posted By

Hardy Wright | 12 months ago

None of those countries are utopias I want or would ever strive for; I like being able to control my own future by exercising my right to work the hours I wish, for as long as I wish, to make as money as I wish to provide for my family.

The US was built on the Protestant Ethic, with the idea that hard work will be rewarded; part of the problem with the current attitude is that too many people are complacent and are willing to ride while the rest do the work.

If people want to sit on their butts and draw from the company store, by all means, maybe they should move to Europe, and the "Utopias"... yeah... right.

Reply By

Veronica Roberts | 12 months ago

Of course it's our right to work as much as we want and it is our right to work ourselves right into the grave too Hardy.

Reply By

Hardy Wright | 12 months ago

Working more than 40 hours isn't exactly "working ourselves right into a grave"... a little over the top, no?

Posted By

Adebanjos | 12 months ago

Wonderful Tips Veronica", thanks for sharing it.

Reply By

Veronica Roberts | 12 months ago

Thanks and you are very welcome...

Posted By

Dava Castillo | 12 months ago

Thanks for the article Veronica.

Our work ethic is 40 plus hours a week, not including overtime that many people find necessary. Of course it's their right to work as much as they want like Hardy suggested. However, the stresses imposed on the body to do so can cause all sorts of physical ailments.

I think they should have included life expectancy and infant mortality to determine the top ten.

Here are the countries with highest life expectancy 1-10.( U.S. is #36.)
Japan
Hong Kong
Iceland
Switzerland
Australia
Spain
Sweden
Israel
Macau
France

Countries with the highest mortality rate for infants rated 1-10. (U.S. is #33)
Iceland
Singapore
Japan
Sweden
Norway
Hong Kong
Finland
Czech Rep.
Switzerland
South Korea

Reply By

Veronica Roberts | 12 months ago

Thanks for the visit and the valuable additional info Dava.

Like hardy said it's our right to work ourselves to death but we can learn a thing or two from these other countries. My brother lives in Sweden and the way of life there is less stressful than here in the U.S. That's a fact not conjecture.

Reply By

Dava Castillo | 12 months ago

You can see that five of the countries are on both lists. There has to be something in these countries that allow people less stressful lives. I didnt research each country, but I would guess that available health care to all has some kind of influence and the number of hours they work.

People need to start looking at how important universal health care is to infant mortality and adult longevity. btw: Our man Bernie Sanders has a new Medicare for all legislation he proposed last month. *sigh* I know its wishful thinking, but this country could sure use it.

Reply By

Dava Castillo | 12 months ago

Hardy

The countries with the highest mortality rate are all in Africa. I dont have time to list them.

Reply By

Hardy Wright | 12 months ago

Just for clarification; do the countries listed under "Countries with the highest mortality rate for infants rated 1-10. (U.S. is #33)" list the ten with the highest mortality rate? this link:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html

shows the US at #176.

This one, from the same source, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html shows the US life expectancy at #50 which is 78.37 years; all those above, after #4 are less than 5 years difference, which is basically negligible.

Reply By

Veronica Roberts | 12 months ago

Yes Dava...I love Bernie....he's the most genuinely passionate politician I've seen in a long time!

Of course there is a correlation to good health and happiness. In fact Winston Churchill once said that healthy citizens were the biggest asset of any country.

Posted By

Abdel Fattah Hussein | 12 months ago

It is informative , thank you for sharing Rated up

Reply By

Veronica Roberts | 12 months ago

Thanks for participating and the positive rating....

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