The ANNOTICO Report
Italy, Germany, and France have very similar attitudes
toward work and
family, with Italy being the most "Family" oriented,
and Germany the least.
The US on the other hand, is "Work" oriented.
Italians and Europeans place a higher Value on Family
Time, and living a
Less Stressful Life, allowing them to be more "sociable"
and loving.
The US, placing a greater Value on Work, to enable them
to be more
"materialistic", placing Greater Value on "Things" rather
than "Family" and
"Quality of Life".
Do we tend to believe our own propaganda too much???
Do we Really have a Better Attitude/Philosophy???
Or have we really lost sight of what is Really Important????
New York Times
By Paul Krugman
July 29, 2005
Americans tend to believe that we do everything better
than anyone else.
That belief makes it hard for us to learn from others.
For example, I've
found that many people refuse to believe that Europe
has anything to teach
us about health care policy. After all, they say, how
can Europeans be good
at health care when their economies are such failures?
Now, there's no reason a country can't have both an excellent
health care
system and a troubled economy (or vice versa). But are
European economies
really doing that badly?
The answer is no. Americans are doing a lot of strutting
these days, but a
head-to-head comparison between the economies of the
United States and
Europe - France, in particular - shows that the big difference
is in
priorities, not performance. We're talking about two
highly productive
societies that have made a different tradeoff between
work and family time.
And there's a lot to be said for the French choice.
First things first: given all the bad-mouthing the French
receive, you may
be surprised that I describe their society as "productive."
Yet according
to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
productivity
in France - G.D.P. per hour worked - is actually a bit
higher than in the
United States.
It's true that France's G.D.P. per person is well below
that of the United
States. But that's because French workers spend more
time with their
families.
O.K., I'm oversimplifying a bit. There are several reasons
why the French
put in fewer hours of work per capita than we do. One
is that some of the
French would like to work, but can't: France's unemployment
rate, which
tends to run about four percentage points higher than
the U.S. rate, is a
real problem. Another is that many French citizens retire
early. But the
main story is that full-time French workers work shorter
weeks and take
more vacations than full-time American workers.
The point is that to the extent that the French have less
income than we
do, it's mainly a matter of choice. And to see the consequences
of that
choice, let's ask how the situation of a typical middle-class
family in
France compares with that of its American counterpart.
The French family, without question, has lower disposable
income. This
translates into lower personal consumption: a smaller
car, a smaller house,
less eating out.
But there are compensations for this lower level of consumption.
Because
French schools are good across the country, the French
family doesn't have
to worry as much about getting its children into a good
school district.
Nor does the French family, with guaranteed access to
excellent health
care, have to worry about losing health insurance or
being driven into
bankruptcy by medical bills.
Perhaps even more important, however, the members of that
French family are
compensated for their lower income with much more time
together. Fully
employed French workers average about seven weeks of
paid vacation a year.
In America, that figure is less than four.
So which society has made the better choice?
I've been looking at a new study of international differences
in working
hours by Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser, at Harvard,
and Bruce
Sacerdote, at Dartmouth. The study's main point is that
differences in
government regulations, rather than culture (or taxes),
explain why
Europeans work less than Americans.
But the study also suggests that in this case, government
regulations
actually allow people to make a desirable tradeoff -
to modestly lower
income in return for more time with friends and family
- the kind of deal
an individual would find hard to negotiate. The authors
write: "It is hard
to obtain more vacation for yourself from your employer
and even harder, if
you do, to coordinate with all your friends to get the
same deal and go on
vacation together."
And they even offer some statistical evidence that working
fewer hours
makes Europeans happier, despite the loss of potential
income.
It's not a definitive result, and as they note, the whole
subject is
"politically charged." But let me make an observation:
some of that
political charge seems to have the wrong sign.
American conservatives despise European welfare states
like France. Yet
many of them stress the importance of "family values."
And whatever else
you may say about French economic policies, they seem
extremely supportive
of the family as an institution. Senator Rick Santorum,
are you reading
this?
E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com
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