## How Much Does the World Work?

## Source details

**Canonical URL:** [How Much Does the World Work?](https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2026/06/gethin.pdf)

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### Data and methods
- Main data sources: household surveys fielded by statistical institutes and compiled by the International Labour Organization and the World Bank, supplemented with other surveys from various international and country-specific sources.
- Database coverage:
  - Covers 160 countries representing 97 percent of the world’s population.
  - Time series span more than 20 years in 86 countries at all levels of development.
- Measurement conventions:
  - Weekly hours worked in all jobs that contribute to economic production.
  - Includes unpaid agricultural work.
  - Excludes unpaid home services such as cleaning, cooking, and taking care of children or elderly family members.

### Key empirical findings
- Employment and hours, global averages:
  - 59 percent of adults ages 15 and older are employed.
  - Those with jobs work 43 hours a week on average.
  - Implies the average adult worldwide—including those without employment—works about 25 hours each week.
- Life-cycle pattern:
  - Working hours are lowest among teenagers, rise steeply during early adulthood, peak in prime working years, and fall sharply after age 60.
- Gender distribution:
  - Men provide roughly two-thirds of total worldwide working hours.
  - Women account for just one-third of total worldwide working hours.
  - Disparities arise primarily from differences in employment rates rather than differences in hours among those employed.
- Development and working hours:
  - Hours worked per adult follow a mild bell-shaped relationship with income per capita: lowest in poor and rich countries and highest in middle-income economies.
  - Income levels explain only a small fraction of global variations in working hours.
  - Examples cited:
    - Some of the lowest working times: France, South Africa, Afghanistan.
    - Some of the highest working times: Madagascar, Vietnam, China.
  - The bell-shaped relationship is driven by hours per worker rather than employment rates; working time for those with jobs exceeds 45 hours a week in middle-income countries such as India and Pakistan.
  - Structural transformation: expansion of manufacturing and services in emerging market economies coincides with intense labor demand and long working hours; in high-income countries, stronger regulations, greater formalization, and shifting social norms reduce weekly work time.
  - Exceptions to the general pattern include long hours in rich countries such as the United States and Singapore.
- Young and old:
  - Working time among young and elderly populations declines sharply as countries develop, primarily due to institutional changes:
    - For young people: expanding school attendance reduces work hours.
    - For older adults: development of public pension systems allows retirement without severe income loss.
  - Once schooling and pension coverage are accounted for, national income itself no longer predicts working hours at these ages.
- Prime-age stability and gender reshuffling:
  - Among prime-age adults (20–59 years old), total working time has been remarkably stable across development levels and over long historical periods.
  - Example: In the United States, average prime-age hours, including those without jobs, were about 30 a week in 1900—virtually identical to today.
  - Stability masks a reorganization by gender: male working hours decline while female hours in paying jobs increase as countries develop, often offsetting each other and reducing gender inequalities in working time.
- Taxes, regulations, and policy choices:
  - Higher labor taxes correlate with fewer working hours across countries (examples: low-tax India with longer hours; high-tax France with considerably less work).
  - After accounting for labor regulations and expansion of formal employment, the direct effect of taxes on working hours disappears.
  - Stronger regulation of working time and broader coverage of formal labor contracts appear to play the most important role in explaining declines in hours at the highest levels of development.
  - Policy instruments shaping hours include limits on maximum working hours, overtime rules, paid leave, and retirement systems.
  - Conclusion: reduced hours reflect policy choices about how work should be organized rather than individual responses to incentives alone.

### Implications and interpretation
- Economic development alone does not mechanically dictate how much people work; cultural and social choices encoded in public policy shape hours worked much more than pure economic development.
- The balance between work and leisure is a collective negotiation embedded in institutions, labor laws, and social expectations.

*Source: Gethin and Saez 2025 (as presented in the provided content).*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2026/06/gethin.pdf_