It turns out that some of the stereotypes about American versus European workers are true, according to a recent survey: Americans really do work more hours and Europeans are happier with their life-work balance.
U.S. workers work longer hours than their European counterparts by a significant margin, according to a survey of 1,228 workers by Kickresume, a career tools website. For the U.S. respondents, 48% reported working more than 40 hours per week, compared to 31% for the Europeans. Included in those totals were 8% of the U.S. respondents working more than 50 hours per week versus 5% for the Europeans.
"There might be something to this American myth of appearing more hard-working than we thought," says Martin Poduška, Kickresume's editor in chief, who is based in Europe.
Meanwhile, about half the Europeans in the September-October survey said they were either happy or very happy with their work-life balance compared to one third of Americans, 51% and34%, respectively.
The idea for the survey came from a "hilarious" Tik Tok video comparing stereotypes of the modern-day U.S. and Europe to the ancient Romans and Greeks, Poduška says, with the Romans—the U.S. analog—as the militaristic, hard-working, virtuous people and Greeks as the hedonistic, wealthy members of the Roman empire.
"We wanted to see if there's really something about all these myths about Americans being really that hardworking compared to Europeans. We wanted to know if Europeans are really as lazy as Americans think they are," Poduška says.
"We had some experiences with our American colleagues who, well, perhaps talked a lot about how hard they work, but at the end of the day they didn't actually do as much as they were talking about doing," he says.
Despite the longer hours in the U.S., the productive hours per day were about the same on both sides of the Atlantic, the survey respondents said: 57% of Europeans and 52% of Americans reported 6 to 8 hours per day of productive time.
"It seems that American employers are working their employees a bit harder than the European ones do," Poduška says. "This seems to increase the overall level of unhappiness at work and decreases work satisfaction and it doesn't produce results."
The survey also revealed gaps between the Americans and Europeans about using vacation days, their attitudes about taking time off and workplace stress.
Europeans enjoy more vacation time: 26% of the Americans in the survey took only five or fewer vacation days last year, compared to 9% of the Europeans. Nearly half of the Americans—49%—took 10 days or fewer, while 59% of the Europeans took more than 21days off.
Europeans also take more long vacations: 47% of the European workers said they occasionally take two-weeks-plus vacations, while 60% of Americans never take that long of a vacation.
The vacation gap is even wider for entry-level workers: 66% of Europeans in this category took 16 or more vacation days last year, which is three times more than their American peers.
Americans also feel more guilty about taking time off. Nearly half of the Europeans in the survey—49%—reported not feeling guilty at all, compared to 32% of the US workers. Of the Americans in the survey, 33% often felt guilty for taking time off, compared to 18% of the Europeans.
Regarding sick days specifically, 19% of the U.S. workers felt pressured to avoid taking sick days, nearly double the percentage for Europeans, at10%.
On the issue of workplace stress, the survey indicated that more of the American workplaces are stressful: 21% of the U.S. workers said their coworkers always seemed stressed, more than double the percentage reported by European workers—8%.
For both Americans and Europeans, workers in the 28- to 43-year-old age range were the most likely to describe their work as "stressful work that's exhausting," according to the survey.
Despite the workplace stress findings, a large majority of both the Americans and Europeans described their work as "balanced" in the survey. But more of the European workers enjoyed balance: 69% of the U.S. workers described their work as either "balanced work with some high-paced moments" or "calm and balanced work," compared to 82% of the Europeans.
The survey also revealed a potential generational shift by younger Americans toward working fewer hours and adopting more of a European view of work.
Gen Z workers in the U.S.—those who are 18 to 27 years old—were more likely than older Americans to work 31 to 40 hours per week. This suggests that the younger generation prioritizes more of a work-life balance over long hours, assuming their employers are giving them the opportunity to work as many hours as they would like, Poduška says.
"It feels like Gen Z is refusing to work overtime; they clock in, clock out," he says. "They view work in a more cynical way; perhaps a European way. They are not going to lay down their lives for the company."
