The Case Against Work/Life Balance

Compensation (both monetary and in the form of benefits) does not increase linearly with number of hours worked. If someone can only handle working 35 hours a week in the U.S., they won't be earning 87.5% of what they would if they worked 40 hours a week. This forces a lot of people into working more hours than they otherwise would.

If work is capped at 35 hours a week, then people don't have to work insane hours (I would classify 70+ hours a week as insane) to maximize their compensation per hour. They can maximize it at 35, which for most people, is a much more sustainable (in terms of mental and physical health) number of hours.

If the goal is to maximize the benefit to society produced by workers, then I think a far better method is directing people into work which actually benefits society. McDonald's, for example, employs 400k people worldwide, and as far as I'm concerned, they're working for a net loss in social benefit. Assuming the average McDonald's employee works only 25 hours per week, that's over 500 million worker-hours wasted each year. To put it another way, every year McDonald's wastes almost 6 millenia of labor.

If all workers were doing work that truly benefited society, I think 20 hours a week would probably be more than enough. Technology has made us, as a species, incredibly efficient. We can sustain ourselves with almost no effort. Most of the effort that is being expended is going to produce garbage food, garbage media and the garbage infrastructure necessary to consume the two.

Consider again the tale of the fisherman and the tourist (http://tiki.oneworld.net/sustain/tourist.html or if you read German, the original: http://www.uni-flensburg.de/asta/pol_kultur_anekdote.htm). We can all be the fisherman. We have the resources. I think the whole notion of limiting working hours in a week ultimately stems from this idea. I think it's a way of saying, "We don't need more stuff. Take a break and enjoy what you have."

But ultimately, I think it's designed to benefit those who would like to work 87.5% of the time for 87.5% of the pay, not those who have a bad work/life balance by choice. If I'm right, it might be better to make the law that employers must offer a part-time option (as long as it's not completely impractical to do so) with at least 95% total compensation parity (per hour worked) with full-time workers in the same position. It would also make sense to limit additional compensation for overtime workers to perhaps 105% of full-time compensation (per hour worked). This way workers could chose for themselves how to set their work/life balance. When part-time workers get 60% or 70% per hour (total compensation) of what full-time workers get, then the choice is largely out of their hands.

That doesn't actually mean French workers only work 35 hours per week. It means:

1. Hours worked beyond 35/week can be reclaimed as vacation

2. This only applies to low level white-collar jobs. Secretaries get 35 hours. Engineers don't.

3. There's a lot of abuse. The definition of "low level" is vague, and not tied to salary. So you'll see a lot of "editorial managers" who barely make minimum wage, but don't get their 35 hours.

"As a group, employees who are asked to work long hours are the above-average workers;"

Nonsense. Employees who work longer hours are, (IMHO) the below-average workers who can't get the work done in the time allotted. Whether they do it of their own accord, or are asked to stay behind and finish.