Work vs employment

Arthur C. Brooks (via Will) raises a puzzle which he doesn't answer:

For most Americans, work is a rock-solid source of life happiness. Happy people work more hours each week than unhappy people, and work more in their free time as well. Even more tellingly, people with more hours per day to relax outside their jobs are not any happier than those who have less non-work time. In short, the idea that our heavy workloads are lowering our happiness is twaddle...
This may be one reason why Americans tend to score better than Europeans on most happiness surveys...Those sweet five-week vacations and 35-hour workweeks don't seem to be stimulating all that much felicity. A good old-fashioned 50-hour week might be a better option.

The puzzle is: if work does make people happy, how come Europeans choose to do less of it? Isn't this irrational? I suspect not, because American and European attitudes (on average, with many exceptions) differ, in two possible ways.
1. There's a big difference between work and employment. I like work, but I hate employment. It's inefficient because I waste time travelling to it. There's a sense of futility that comes from doing something peripheral in a large organization. There's a feeling of isolation because I don't fit in; you're never lonelier than when surrounded by people. And there's the enormous disutility of living in London.
I suspect something similar is true of many people. But perhaps Americans, more than European, see "work" as meaning self-realization rather than the hassle of employment.
2. There are optimism/pessimism biases. If an American thinks his boss is a tool, he thinks: "if that schmuck can do well, I'll be able to do even better if I work hard." But a European thinks: "that's the sort of twat that succeeds around here." Perhaps there are historical reasons for these biases. In the US, rulers have included the Founding Fathers. In Europe, they've been mainly tyrants or idiots.
Unless there are differences like these, the European preference to work less seems irrational. Which is implausible, isn't it?
I'll leave you with Homer Simpson:

No, no, no, Lisa. If adults don't like their jobs, they don't go on strike. They just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American Way.

Comments

[dearieme]

I have the impression that Americans haven't got a taste for the greatest of the popular arts. Gardening.

[Planeshift]

Oh dear,

How many more times do we have to say it?

Correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

The original author here has taken two variables (amount of hours worked and happiness) from two seperate sources no less, noted a correlation and then proclaimed that one causes the other.

Here are some other variables that correlate with higher happiness levels in the US:

Level of religion
Amount of TV watched
Amount of prozac and prescription drugs designed to alter mood taken (no idea whether this true actually - I'm guessing)
Prison population
Obesity
inequality
involvement in foreign wars
Spending on political campaigns
etc

There are also some other explanations - perhaps americans are just as unhappy as europeans but more culturally disposed to tell surveys they are happy because culturally it is more unacceptable to reveal one's true feelings, putting a brave face on it, displaying a positive attitude etc.

[Mark]

'If an American thinks his boss is a tool, he thinks: "if that schmuck can do well, I'll be able to do even better if I work hard." But a European thinks: "that's the sort of twat that succeeds around here."'

That's an absurd generalisation.

[Will]

Has anyone considered that many Americans are descended from the sibling in the family who decided that the certainty of limited prospects in the old country was outweighed by the possibilty of better prospects from the investment of giving that up and starting from nothing or very little. It may be genetics, it may be passed down the generations, by upbringing.

When kids in fast food outlets, or the guy taking your money for gasoline ask "how'y'a doin'" or say "have a nice day", they mean it, most of the time. I thought they did it because the 'twat bosses' and shift supervisors were all David Brent types who fired anyone who did not keep up a front of having a positive mental attitude.

[Chris P]

Re: Point one. Based on the internal evidence I don't understand why you can't telecommute. You don't appear to need the 'discipline' of the workplace. Nor do you appear to relish office life & therefore your contribution could well be redundant. Or is a workplace a psychologiocal prop is it is for most people?

[Matt Munro]

,'If an American thinks his boss is a tool, he thinks: "if that schmuck can do well, I'll be able to do even better if I work hard." But a European thinks: "that's the sort of twat that succeeds around here."'

That's an absurd generalisation.

Maybe - Also the only thing to make me laugh out loud on a wet Monday morning chained my desk with the my boss behind me

[Matt Munro]

Correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

Indeed. As a psychology undergradute (a subject where separating the wheat from the chaff in terms of experimental variables is a holy grail) the example given to demonstrate this maxim was a study which showed a very high correlation between UK arts council funding and mating habits among arctic penguins.

[Lars Smith]

Maybe Europeans simply have a stronger preference than Americans for vacations because of higher taxes on work.

[Steve]

It's always seemed to me that Americans tend to distrust government power while Europeans distrust corporate power. Yes, it's a generalisation but Americans tend to have a more positive view of corporations and perhaps that's why they are happier working for them.

I can't imagine anything like this ever happening in the UK:

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2795634

[Kevin Carson]

'If an American thinks his boss is a tool, he thinks: "if that schmuck can do well, I'll be able to do even better if I work hard."'

Americans, unfortunately, have absorbed the central lesson fed them: they think all those turtles got on fenceposts by their climbing ability. "If I work hard enough building pyramids, someday I can be Pharaoh."

[cigar store las vegas]

Sportspeople are, are not our Rolemodels

[beer can shorts]

More or less nothing seems important. It's not important. Shrug. Whatever. I've just been hanging out doing nothing, but eh. I can't be bothered with anything lately.

[fresno city college book store]

Women are not, are fairly portrayed in the media

[baby candy bar wrapper]

animals don't belong in zoos

[sleep]

Teachers must be paid based on performance

[Steve]

Sex offenders should be, should not be castrated

[ann]

Today was a loss. I just don't have anything to say. Not that it matters.