from Hacker News

When Korea imposed a limit on working hours, did it make people happier?

by spindritf on 11/25/14, 1:50 PM with 87 comments

• by PhasmaFelis on 11/25/14, 3:20 PM

  Before you draw any firm conclusions, be sure to read the details in the last couple of paragraphs: The subjects' hours were only reduced by about 10%, an average of five hours a week; many of them were still working 40-50 hours; and many of them were still expected to get the same amount of work done, forcing them to take work home with them.

  The article author suggests that the Korean laws may not have gone far enough.

• by s3nnyy on 11/25/14, 4:55 PM

  Happiness-wise South Korea ranks 41. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report).

  Here in Switzerland (3rd in happiness) it is not unusual that people are employed only 3-4 days / week and still make enough money to live well. I don't know of any other country where this is commonplace.

  (Full disclosure: If you're from the EU and looking for a tech-job over here, I'd be happy to help out).

• by qwerta on 11/25/14, 3:16 PM

  I can speek for Greece, where is ban on sunday work. For workers it just means they have to work unpaid (and undeclared) overtimes.

  If you wont to make people happy, just introduce double pay for overtimes and really enforce it!

• by Sumaso on 11/25/14, 3:00 PM

  Reading the abstract from the actual paper itself seems to indicate that people were not more or less satisfied with their jobs after the reduction of working hours.

  "While satisfaction with working hours increased, reductions had no impact on job and life satisfaction."

  It seems people did actually like the reduced number of hours, they didn't say that they liked their job more, or found more satisfaction in their life. I feel like for most people a job is something you do to fund the things you really want to do.

  I would love to see what worker satisfaction would be if their income was fixed, but they could choose whichever job they wanted. (aka. you'll always get paid the same amount of money regardless of what job you do).

• by seanstickle on 11/25/14, 6:01 PM

  I favor something more like a Results-Only Work Environment (http://gorowe.com/pages/rowe-standards), where the focus is on the results and not on how many hours are worked.

  Too many companies (even startups) are conservatives and traditionalists in the sense of thinking that work needs to be done within certain hours and at a certain place, even when those are not drivers of the results.

  I'm hired to deliver certain results, not to work a number of hours. If it takes me 10 hours or 40 hours to deliver those results, that's up to me, as long as the deadlines are hit and the deliverables are high-quality. And there's no reason to be in an office, unless the office is instrumental to achieving those results.

  The focus on how many hours people should work is a fetish that reinforces a still-dominant 20th century office culture.

• by hawkice on 11/25/14, 6:37 PM

  I think a helpful lens is to generally worry about what you are funging against. Time, as a fungible resource, can be allocated to work (generally done in fixed portions), and the remainder to other activities. In America (I have no knowledge specific to Korea), a large percentage of those other activities is "watch television". People self-assess as less happy watching television than they do while working. So giving out more time may increase access to things that make people happy (spending time with loved ones) but also increase time spent on things that make them unhappy. Obviously this is only part of the story, but looking at replacement activities would be a great next step.

• by dba7dba on 11/26/14, 1:43 AM

  S Korea just a generation ago was a developing world, with a harsh dictator.

  Two generations ago, it was really at the rock bottom nation on the globe in terms of any ranking you can think of (poverty/violence/dictatorship/low-education/etc). Pick any poor nation in Asia/Africa and it was probably doing better than S Korea.

  Remember these: History of Korean War, there's no much natural resource to sell off, with 3 powerful nations (who all have either invaded Korea in the past and view it as a potential target) nearby, with N Korea 30 miles from Seoul, AND (get this) no escape route over land in case of a military conflict (S Korea is pretty much an island now and you canNOT walk/drive to flee S Korea),

  they better really really get their house in order to survive.

  Younger S Korean sociologists/commentators lament about how the intense competition is driving people to commit suicides (yes tragic) but they forget many, many more people died/suffered from poverty/basic-medical-care not that long ago.

  With all these in context, no wonder they work.

  Btw, it's really really said for older S Korean that are passing these days. They really suffered hard lives and just when their older kids/grandkids are enjoying abundant lives, but they can't really enjoy as much due to age.

• by joshdance on 11/25/14, 3:44 PM

  TLDR - No it didn't, they don't know why, it may have improved well-being.

• by yongjik on 11/25/14, 6:03 PM

  "Imposed" should be in gigantic scare quotes.

  Many Korean businesses, big and small, routinely make employees work overtime without payment. Maybe we should ask the question after we do have an enforced limit.