"Even If I Win the Lottery, I Want to Keep Working"…Only 1% Work Over 50 Hours a Week in 'I Nara'

Only 1% of Danes Work More Than 50 Hours a Week
High Satisfaction Thanks to Work-Life Balance and Democratic Workplace Culture

It has been revealed that only about 1% of the population in Denmark work more than 50 hours per week.

On the 15th (local time), the British BBC reported that according to recent statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), only 1.1% of Danes work more than 50 hours per week. This figure is significantly lower than the global average of 10.2%, and much lower compared to other developed countries such as the United States (10.4%) and the United Kingdom (10.8%).

Experts stated that because work-life balance (WLB) is guaranteed to this extent, Danish workers tend to have a high level of satisfaction with their working hours.

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Make Viking, director of the Danish think tank 'Happiness Research Institute,' told the BBC, "In fact, Danes are happy at work," adding, "Almost 60% of Danes say they would continue working even if they won the lottery or became financially independent."

One of the main reasons Viking cited for the high job satisfaction among Danish workers is the democratic workplace culture where supervisors trust their employees. He pointed to the '3-meter rule' commonly practiced among employees at the Tivoli Gardens amusement park in Copenhagen as a representative example. This rule is based on guaranteeing employees' responsibility and autonomy, where every employee becomes the CEO of everything happening within a 3-meter radius.

Gabriel Hoses, who works at a tech company in Copenhagen, also emphasized the trust inherent in Danish workplace culture. He said, "No one micromanages you or tries to watch over your shoulder," adding, "Managers only care whether you complete the project; they do not come to check if you worked 8 hours or 9 hours a day."

Denmark’s outstanding social welfare system, as a representative welfare state, is another reason for the high job satisfaction. Denmark provides paid maternity and parental leave for six months to workers who become parents. Additionally, if workers lose their jobs due to restructuring, they receive government subsidies.

Meanwhile, in February last year, the Korea Employers Federation (KEF) announced that as of 2022, 2.53 million domestic workers worked more than 50 hours per week. This corresponds to 12.0% of all workers, which is 1.8 percentage points higher than the OECD average of 10.2%. The number of workers who worked more than 60 hours per week was 670,000, accounting for 3.2% of all workers, which is lower than the OECD average (3.8%).