Technology and automation has led to much greater efficiencies and output for every human in the workforce over the last 50 years. How come this hasn’t led globally to less working hours or a shorter work week for the average worker?

Question

EDIT: Replace ‘every human in the workforce’ with ‘most people’. I agree efficiency has not been gained equally across all professions.

In: Economics

Answer 1

Your question is very biaised and assume we are not working less, yet we actually are.

I have some numbers but they are part of a french study made by the official statistics organisation (insee) so you may have some trouble reading them. If you just want the chart, scroll down to “Tableau 1”. You can probably find the numbers yourself pretty easily too, i doubt this data is hidden.

As far as France goes, we used to work 45-46h/week 50 years ago, and now it is 35. We also went from 2 to 5 weeks of paid leave per year between 1950 and today.

The graph also shows a global decrease of 25% of the time of work in the USA from 1950 to 2007, and the trend has not changed since.

Source here:

[https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1281175](https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/1281175)