KEY POINTS:
What is it about New Zealanders that drives us to work such long hours?
According to an analysis of 2006 Census data, commissioned by the Families Commission and the Department of Labour, one in three full-time workers are clocking up more than 50
hours a week.
New Zealand ranks highly in international surveys of long working hours. We seem to be well above most European countries, including the UK, and behind only a small number of developed countries, such as the US and Korea.
The occupational groups identified as working long hours include specialist managers, chief executives, farmers, legislators, education professions, hospitality, retail and service managers and train and truck drivers. I can safely say that lawyers should be added to that group.
While there was no significant division on ethnicity lines, there was for gender: three quarters of those working long hours are men.
One common myth is that workers with children do not put in as many hours: the research apparently suggests that workers with young children were slightly over represented in the group identified as working long hours, and so were workers with three or four children.
Longer hours do not necessarily result in greater productivity: the French, for instance, work one of the shortest weeks in Europe, but in productivity terms, are ahead of the UK, which has one of the longest.
Research also backs up what most people take for granted, which is that longer hours can have detrimental effects on health. In women , this can include early menopause and a higher risk of miscarriage.
So what do we do about it? Is education and publicity enough? The press release by the Department of Labour certainly got a reasonable amount of media coverage. But it's doubtful that this sort of thing will change our long hours culture by itself. Perhaps it's time for a legal restriction on working hours.
EU countries are subject to a 48 hour limit on their working hours, under the EU's Working Time Directive (UK workers can opt out, which no doubt contributes to the fact that they work longer hours than other Europeans).
It would be a drastic step, but maybe we need something like that here.
Greg Cain
Greg Cain is an employment lawyer at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts.