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Core Maths Platform - Warm Up - Activity 2 on Hours worked per week

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Core Maths Platform - Warm Up - Activity 2 on Hours worked per week

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integral mathematics resources: log in to the site

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Integral Mathematics Resources: Log in to the site

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4 minute video - Working from home is 'not proper work'

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4 minute video - Working from home is 'not proper work'

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1 minute video on connection between money and inflation

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1 minute video on connection between money and inflation

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What’s the connection between money and inflation? - The History of Money (5/10)

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Register your interest in New to teaching Core Maths Programme or Core Maths Work Groups

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Register your interest in New to teaching Core Maths Programme or Core Maths Work Groups

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Expression of interest - Level 3 AMSP/Maths Hubs Work Groups and Programmes starting Autumn 2024

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An opportunity to express interest in joining a Level 3 Work Group or Programme when they become open to applications.

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Animated global statistics that everyone can understand

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Summary

Finding out you will be teaching Core Maths can feel overwhelming. You may be thinking, where can I find resources? How do I choose activities which will motivate your students? Or how do I prepare them for assessment?

Preparing to Teach Core Maths is a four week live online professional development course and is aimed at those who will be teaching Core Maths for the first time in the near future. The course will be interactive and discursive. It will cover the following topics:

Planning and resourcing

Selection and delivery of activities

Preparing for assessment

Recruitment and maintaining a strong cohort

Who will benefit from attending?

This course is aimed at those who will be teaching Core Maths for the first time in the near future.

If this course is not quite what you are looking for, you may like to consider:

Choose an event

Listed here are the upcoming dates and times this course will run.

There are currently no instances of this event available.

To register your interest in any of our Core Maths courses, please register your interest and we will contact you when a suitable course is open for applications.

Get notified

Interested in this course? Be the first to know where and when it's running by joining our Stay Informed mailing list.

Click to access the login or register cheese Skip to content

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Finding out you will be teaching Core Maths can feel overwhelming. Join us for our new Preparing to teach Core Maths course.

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Record pay rises fuel fresh inflation fears

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Wages continue to rise strongly, raising the prospect of more interest rate rises by the Bank of England.

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Source - statista annual salary by age group

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Source - statista annual salary by age group

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UK full-time annual salary by age 2023 | Statista

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In 2023, full-time workers in their 40s had the highest average annual salary in the United Kingdom, earning on average around 39,491 British pounds a year, compared with 20,437 for people aged between 18 and 21.

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Source - average working hours in Europe

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Source - average working hours in Europe

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Average working hours in Europe: Who works the most and the least?

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The average hours worked per week in Europe vary widely. Countries with higher part-time workers, in particular, reported shorter average workweeks.

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a country for details.

Choose Year to Display Below:

The US Census Bureau's world population clock estimated that the global population as of September 2022 was 7,922,312,800 people and was expected to reach 8 billion by mid-November of 2022. This total far exceeds the 2015 world population of 7.2 billion. The world's population continues to increase by roughly 140 people per minute, with births outweighing deaths in most countries.

Overall, however, the rate of population growth has been slowing for several decades. This slowdown is expected to continue until the rate of population growth reaches zero (an equal number of births and deaths) around 2080-2100, at a population of approximately 10.4 billion people. After this time, the population growth rate is expected to turn negative, resulting in global population decline.

Countries with more than 1 billion people

China is currently the most populous country in the world, with a population estimated at more than 1.42 billion as of September 2022. Only one other country in the world boasts a population of more than 1 billion people: India, whose population is estimated to be 1.41 billion people-and rising.

While India's population is projected to continue to grow until at least the year 2050, China's population is currently contracting slightly. This contraction, coupled with India's continued growth, is expected to result in India replacing China as the most populous country in the world by the year 2030.

Countries with more than 100 million people

Another 12 countries each have populations that exceeded 100 million people as of September 2022:

Country

Population

Country

Population

While Russia and Japan will see their populations decline significantly by 2050, the rest of these nations are expected to continue growing until at least 2050. Additionally, two additional countries, DR Congo and Vietnam, have more than 99 million people and should soon reach the 100 million mark.

Countries with fewer than 100 million people

As shown in the live-updating population table below, the overwhelming majority of the world's countries have fewer than 100 million people-substantially fewer, in some cases. The smallest country in the world in terms of both population and total area is Vatican City, where barely 500 people reside.

Population range

# of countries

1 billion or more

2

100 million to 999.9 million

12

10 million to 99.9 million

80

1 million to 9.9 million

66

less than 1 million

74

Rates of population growth around the world

The world's population continues to increase, with approximately 140 million babies born every year. According to the United Nations' 2022 World Population Prospects report, the global population is projected to reach 8.5 billion people by the year 2030, 9.7 billion people by 2050, and 10.4 billion people by 2080, where it will remain until 2100.

While the world's total population is expected to continue to rise until roughly 2100, the rate at which the population is rising has been slowly decreasing for decades. In 2020, the global population growth rate fell below one percent for the first time since 1950. This decrease continues a trend begun in the 1970s, in which the population growth rate shows a consistent decrease when measured in five-year increments.

The rate of population growth varies greatly from one country or region to another. More than half of the world's expected population growth between now and 2050 is expected to come from just eight countries: DR Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tanzania. Particularly of interest is India, which is on track to overtake China's position as the most populous country by the year 2030. Additionally, multiple nations within Africa are expected to double their populations in the coming decades as fertility rates and birth rates rise thanks in part to advancements in medical care and decreased infant mortality and malnutrition.

Life expectancy and its impact on world population

Global life expectancy has also improved in recent years, rising to 72.8 years in 2019-almost 9 years longer than in 1990. Global life expectancy is projected to continue to increase, reaching 77.2 years by the year 2050. Significant factors impacting the data on life expectancy include expectations regarding mankind's ability to reduce the impact of AIDS/HIV and other infectious and non-communicable diseases.

As a result of the increase in global life expectancy, the majority of the world's countries are undergoing considerable growth in the number of residents over the age of 65. The percentage of over-65 residents in the world's population is projected to rise from 10% in 2022 to 16% in 2050. This total will be roughly twice the number of children under age 5 and equal to the number of children under age 12. This imbalance can put considerable strain on a country's economy and infrastructure, as it can lead to a shortage of working-age individuals entering the workforce to take the place of those who are retiring.

Life expectancy has a significant impact on the ability of the population to maintain what is called a replacement rate, in which the country's death rate is balanced or exceeded by its birth rate. In countries whose birth rates are either deliberately low or unintentionally so, the death rate may be higher, resulting in overall population decline. Although population decline can be desirable in certain circumstances, it can also create economic challenges and is more often viewed as undesired.

Challenges inherent in population estimates

Although population projections such as the US Census Bureau's World Population Clock utilize the most accurate and up-to-date data available, they are nonetheless still estimates. Unforeseen events such as the COVID-19 pandemic or Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine can have a powerful, but impossible-to-anticipate impact on population trends.

Even in the absence of such disruptions, the process of tracking the exact number of births and deaths in every country and territory in the world in real time-and maintaining a precise tally of the number of people alive on the Earth at any given moment-is logistically infeasible. Instead, modern population scientists use sophisticated mathematical models to create detailed estimates and projections, which the world's countries can use to plan for future generations.

2023 World Population 8,005,176,000

Choose Year to Display Below:

World Population History

World Population Projections

World Population in 2050

How will the world's population change over the next eighty years? According to the United Nations' World Population Prospects 2022 report, the global population in 2050 is expected to reach around 9.7 billion people, nearly 2 billion more than the current population today. Current projections anticipate that this growth will continue until it reaches 10.4 million people sometime in the 2080s, at which time the population will hold steady until roughly 2100, then begin to decline.

In terms of population growth in individual countries, India is projected to surpass China as the most populated country in the world sometime during 2023, at which time China's annual growth rate will be between -0.1% and -0.3%, while India's growth rate will be between 0.69% and 0.92%. Given current trends in growth rates, UN projections predict that China's population will slide to 1.2 billion people by 2060, while India's will expand to almost 1.7 billion.

The United States is currently the third most populated country in the world, but is expected to drop to fourth most populated sometime in the early 2040s. Instead, the African country of Nigeria, whose 2022 growth rate is 2.39% (compared to 0.47% in the US) will become the third most populated country in the world. While UN predictions vary from those of the US Census Bureau, Nigeria takes the lead in both projections. Nigeria's population is expected to reach 377-410 million by 2050, while the US will have approximately 375-390 million people.

Vatican City / Holy See is expected to continue as the country with the smallest population in the world for the next several decades. In 2022, the famous Catholic city-state had a population of 510 people as well as a negative population growth rate. However, if global warming and the concurrent sea level rise continue unabated, certain Pacific Island nations such as Kiribati, the Maldives, and Vanuatu may be flooded under the rising oceans, which would force their populations to migrate and reduce their populations to zero.

Population growth from now to the year 2100

The Earth's population is expected to continue growing for the next 60-80 years. Improvements in health care technology, shared by developed countries with still developing and least-developed countries, have increased life expectancy and reduced infant mortality rates-which, in turn, have helped drive a boom in population growth. In fact, ten countries are expected to gain more in population by 2050 than the rest of the world combined.

Top 10 Countries Whose Populations Will Grow the Most by 2050:

Country

Population 2022

Population 2050

Growth

India

1,417,170,000

1,670,490,000

253,320,000

Nigeria

218,540,000

377,460,000

158,920,000

The rise, peak, and decline of population growth

Although the world's population is currently increasing, trends indicate that the rate of growth in many countries, especially developed countries and those with high populations, is slowing down. By the end of this century, even the world's fastest-growing countries are expected to have reached peak population size and begun to display declining (or negative) growth rates.

Many factors contribute to population decline and related metrics such as fertility rates. These include increased access to birth control and family planning, an increase in overall quality of life and the human development index, and various other cultural, political, social, and economic factors These include some factors that may not initially seem related to birth rate, such as the population's general level of education and the government's per-capita health expenditure.

Whether population growth is good or bad depends heavily upon several factors, most notably the rate of growth, the country in which it is taking place, and that country's level of development. Countries that have mature economies and well-developed infrastructure are more likely to be able to absorb an increase in population. Conversely, developing countries are more likely to lack adequate jobs, health care, or other infrastructure to support a larger population.

Similarly, a gentle increase in population is typically considered healthy, but a high rate of growth can be undesirable. High growth can often overwhelm a country's infrastructure, strain systems ranging from the job market to the food supply, and constrain available resources. When this happens, technological advances may offer opportunities to overcome production shortages and/or environmental damage.

World Population By Race

As of late 2022, the world's population was approximately 8 billion people. However, breaking down the global population by race is difficult-primarily because of the evolving meaning of the word "race."

Why the classic concept of race is fundamentally flawed

The modern understanding is that race is an outdated social construct based on certain biological features that society has deemed to be significant. For example, most racial groupings are determined by physical differences such as skin tone or hair color. However, these variations are largely dictated by geography rather than genetics. Put simply, race is an illusion.

To clarify, it is true that isolated populations tend to display certain defining characteristics, such as the dark skin color of Africans or the blonde hair of many Northern Europeans. But these traits are all interchangeable and compatible and do not in any way introduce genetic boundaries between one supposed race and another.

This fact is clearly evidenced in the modern global population. Thanks in large part to advances in transportation and international mobility over the past century, more and more people of various "races" have spread around the world, intermarried, and started families-and their children display a breathtaking array of mixed-race appearances, obfuscating any supposed boundaries between one race and another.

These emerging demographics have made it increasingly obvious to the world's geneticists, anthropologists, and sociologists that clear-cut races do not exist. The mapping of the entire human genome in recent years has solidified and confirmed this view.

Race, ethnicity, and the challenge of tracking global diversity

It is important not to confuse race with ethnicity, which stems from one's society and culture and which does in fact exist. The main difference between race and ethnicity is that race is based on genetic traits and physical appearance, while ethnicity is based upon customs, language, and practices that are learned and passed down from generation to generation.

While the difference between race and ethnicity may be widely understood and accepted in many countries, not every country views the topics through the same lens. Different countries divide race and ethnicity into different possible elements (such as the number of possible ethnicities), and each country has its own system for measuring, classifying, and tracking diversity, whether it be via variations in race, ethnicity, or both.

For instance, the United States still uses the term "race", but treats it as a social identity rather than a biological or anthropological classification. Citizens voluntarily self-identify as White, Black or African American, American Indian, Asian, or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander. Meanwhile, other countries may offer a different range of possible races, or may instead measure ethnicity or country of origin, such as English, German, East Indian, etc.

These incongruent approaches make it difficult to compare data between countries, and confound even the most ambitious attempts to create a universal set of constituent categories capable of containing the entirety of human diversity.

World Population (1950 - 2100)

Other Limited Data Countries

World Population History (5000 B.C. - 2020 A.D.)

World Population History (5000 B.C. - 2020 A.D.)

Throughout most of history, the world's population has been much smaller than it is now. Before the invention of agriculture, for example, the human population was estimated to be around 15 million people at most. For comparison, the world population in 2017 (~7 billion) was roughly equal to a full 6% of the estimated 110 billion people who have ever lived.

The introduction of agriculture and the gradual movement of humanity into settled communities enabled the global population to increase gradually to around 300 million by AD 0. While this is a substantial increase, it remains a tiny fraction of the current population. For example, the Roman Empire, which historians regard as one of the strongest empires the world has ever known, probably contained around 50 million people at its height-nearly 20 million less than the population of the UK today.

The world population would not reach its first major milestone-one billion people-until the early 19th century. Then, as the industrial revolution took hold and living standards improved, the rate of population growth increased considerably. Over the next hundred years, the population of the world doubled, reaching two billion in the late 1920s.

During the 20th century, however, population growth skyrocketed. Over the past 100 years, the planet's population has more than tripled in size. This massive increase in human population is largely due to improvements in diet, sanitation, and medicine, especially compulsory vaccination against many diseases, which have both improved life expectancy and decreased infant mortality rates all over the world.

A Timeline of World Population Growth Milestones (People):

Year 0001: 200 million

Year 1000: 275 million

Year 1500: 450 million

Year 1650: 500 million

Year 1750: 700 million

Year 1804: 1.0 billion

Year 1850: 1.2 billion

Year 1900: 1.6 billion

Year 1927: 2.0 billion

Year 1950: 2.55 billion

Year 1955: 2.8 billion

Year 1960: 3.0 billion

Year 1970: 3.7 billion

Year 1985: 4.85 billion

Year 1999: 6.0 billion

Year 2011: 7.0 billion

Year 2023: 8.0 billion (projected)

Population growth in the future

While past population trends are fairly well known (only the specific dates of certain milestones are occasionally disputed), future trends are less clear. Most population experts agree that population increases will continue, albeit at an ever-decreasing rate, until the Earth's population reaches its ceiling, pauses, and begins to contract. However, the particulars of that process, such as the rate of increase, when and at what number the population will plateau, and the rate of decrease that will follow, are still the subject of much debate.

Most population experts tag steadily improving global standards of living as the cause of decreasing rates of population increase. As wealth and quality of life increase, the average family size will shrink and population growth will steadily slow and eventually stop.

However, other experts maintain that poverty, inequality and continued urbanization will have the opposite effect and cause a growth increase, particularly in countries in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, where population growth is already much higher than the global average.

Still others predict a population decrease stemming from much bleaker causes. These experts speculate that the current world population is unsustainable in the long term and that humanity will reach a point at which we simply cannot produce enough food or utilize our natural resources efficiently enough to feed such a large population or sustain the global economy at its current scale.

World Population History Chart

2022 projections by the United Nations estimate that the global population could swell to 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion by 2050, and 10.4 billion by 2080. At that point, the population is expected to plateau before beginning to decline around the year 2100. Current population growth is driven in large part by advances in medicine, which are increasing life expectancy; and improved health care in developing and least-developed countries, which is decreasing infant mortality.

The rate of population growth is not equal in every country. According to the United Nations' 2022 World Population Prospects report, many of the world's 46 least-developed countries are expected to double in population from 2022 to 2050, placing them among the world's fastest-growing countries. Conversely, 61 of the world's countries are expected to decrease in population by at least 1% between 2022 and 2050. The largest contractions are expected to occur in Eastern Europe, while the largest growth will come from the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

Although the population of the world currently grows daily, the overall rate of that growth has been slowing for decades. The rate of population growth peaked in 1970 at 2.06% growth per year, but had dropped to 1.78% by 1980. Rates remained relatively flat throughout the '80s, with a minimal rise to 1.80% by 1990. From there, however, the rate of population growth began to drop precipitously, falling to 1.37% in 2000, 1.27% in 2010, and 0.87% in 2020-the first time since 1950 that the growth rate had fallen below 1%. The United Nations predicts the global population growth rate will continue to decrease over the next several decades, until it dips into negative population growth around the year 2100.

World Population Growth Chart

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a country for details. Choose Year to Display Below: The US Census Bureau's world population clock estimated that the global population as of September 2022 was 7,922,312,800 people and was expected to reach 8 billion by mid-November of 2022. This total far exceeds the 2015 world population of 7.2 billion.

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Source - statista working from home in UK

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Source - statista working from home in UK

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In 2020, approximately 5.6 million people worked mainly from home in the United Kingdom, an increase of around 1.69 million people when compared with 1998, when just 2.9 million workers mainly worked from home.

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Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

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Provisional UK greenhouse gas emissions national statistics 2022

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Provisional estimates of UK territorial greenhouse gas emissions for 2022, including quarterly emissions estimates.

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Nielsen’s State of Play report reveals that streaming is the future, but consumers are currently overwhelmed by choice | Nielsen

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The report highlights the increasing boom of video content in both linear and streaming in recent years, noting that Americans increased their average weekly time streaming video by 18% between February 2021 and February 2022.

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BBC article - Netflix loses almost a million subscribers

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BBC article - Netflix loses almost a million subscribers

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After enjoying a long reign as king of streaming, Netflix faces a fight to keep its crown.

The streaming giant lost nearly 1 million subscribers between April and July, as an accelerating number of people quit the service.

But that was not as many as the firm had feared, as the launch of a new season of hit drama Stranger Things helped the firm staunch the outflow.

Netflix said it expected sign-up growth to restart later this year.

The company reported its first subscriber loss since 2011 in April, news that was followed by hundreds of job cuts.

Rivals are challenging its dominance, while price hikes have taken a toll.

The losses reported Tuesday were the biggest in the firm's history, with the US and Canada home to the highest number of cancellations in the quarter, followed by Europe.

Guy Bisson, executive director at Ampere Analysis, said it was "inevitable" that Netflix would start to see its grip on the market loosen.

"When you're the leader, there's only one direction to go, especially when a large amount of competition launches, which is what Netflix has seen in the last couple of years," he said.

It's a stark change for Netflix, which enjoyed years of seemingly unstoppable growth, as it revolutionised the way people around the world consume entertainment.

Its position as a global behemoth was cemented when the pandemic hit in 2020 and people, stuck at home with few other options for entertainment, flocked to monster hits like Squid Games and The Crown.

But as pre-pandemic habits return, Netflix has struggled to attract new sign-ups - and maintain the loyalty of existing members, especially as the cost of living crisis leads to belt tightening.

New, sometimes less expensive options from competitors, like Disney, many of which used to sell their movies and television series to Netflix, are tempting audiences to switch, while satisfaction levels have curdled as the firm puts up prices.

Price hikes more 'risky'

A "standard" plan in the US - which allows people in the same home to watch on two devices simultaneously - now costs $15.49, up from $14 in January and just $11 in 2019.

In the UK, basic and standard plans have both increased since January by £1 a month to £6.99 and £10.99 respectively.

"At some point, yes, they're going to reach a threshold where a significant number of people say enough is enough," Mr Bisson said. "Because of the additional choice ... price hikes are a more risky strategy."

For now, surveys suggest that Netflix is managing to lure back a higher share of deserters than its rivals. Many households also continue to identify it as the streaming option they would retain if forced to have only one.

In all, the company had roughly 220 million subscribers at the end of June - still well north of its closest competition.

But the company, long accustomed to posting double digit growth, is grappling with its most serious slowdown in years, with revenue in the April-June quarter of $7.9bn, up just 8.6% year-on-year.

The value of the firm's shares has dropped more than 60% so far this year, as investors sour on its prospects.

"Netflix's subscriber loss was expected but it remains a sore point for a company that is wholly dependent on subscription revenue from consumers," said Insider Intelligence analyst Ross Benes.

"Netflix is still the leader in video streaming but unless it finds more franchises that resonate widely, it will eventually struggle to stay ahead of competitors that are after its crown."

Shares climbed more than 7% in after-hours trade on relief the losses were not larger.

The firm has said it will jumpstart growth with a new ads-supported service and by clamping down on password sharing - which one study estimated was costing Netflix $25bn a year.

It is already charging more for sharing accounts in some countries in central and South America.

In its shareholder update, the company said it was "encouraged by our early learnings and ability to convert consumers to paid sharing in Latin America".

It said it expected its less expensive, ad-supported option to launch in early 2023, starting in "a handful of markets where advertising spend is significant".

"Like most of our new initiatives, our intention is to roll it out, listen and learn, and iterate quickly to improve the offering," the company said.

The ad service has the potential to attract both existing customers inclined to cancel over price hikes, as well as new households hesitant to commit to a subscription without watching, Mr Bisson said.

It should be possible for Netflix to make the same amount of money - or more - per user than it did by relying on subscriptions, he added.

Strong content critical

"Assuming they get it right - and by getting it right I mean the price ... and the amount of advertising on it - then it's potentially a strong strategic move for them," he said.

But he said its most critical task is ensuring it has strong material for people to watch - a job that has grown harder as it pushes to reach an increasingly broad audience.

New sign-ups in the US, for example, are coming from an increasingly older crowd, with different tastes than the younger viewers who were early streaming converts.

"They're increasingly competing for that generalist audience, so the breadth of content that is needed becomes much wider and that's why I think people are saying 'There's now a lot of stuff I don't like'", Mr Bisson said. "It's a very big challenge."

Netflix needs "more frequent hits," said Eric Steinberg of Whip Media, adding that Netflix also has room to experiment staggering its releases to keep a hold on its members.

The company has already taken steps in that direction by releasing episodes of the fourth season of Stranger Things in two batches this year, but the "pressure is on" he said.

"They don't have the sandbox to themselves anymore," he said. "In an inflationary environment like the one we're in and also great programming [at the competition], people are going to re-evaluate how much they're willing to pay."

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Netflix loses almost a million subscribers

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After enjoying a long reign as king of streaming, Netflix faces a fight to keep its crown. The streaming giant lost nearly 1 million subscribers between April and July, as an accelerating number of people quit the service.

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This statistical note shows how average earnings have changed over time by region of the UK and for different age groups.
Summary tables provide data on earnings by gender, by age group and by region between 2008 and 2019. More detailed data can be accessed using an Earnings data tool.

Trend in average earnings

Median weekly pay for full-time employees in the UK was £585 at April 2019. After adjusting for inflation (to obtain figures "in real terms"), this is 4.2% lower than in 2008.

The chart shows the trend since 1997, adjusting for CPI inflation. The median is the point at which half of employees earn more and half earn less.

Regional differences

Median weekly pay was highest for full-time employees living in London and lowest for those in the North East at April 2019.

However, London also saw the largest falls in median full-time earnings over the period 2008-2019 after adjusting for price inflation ("in real terms"). With the exception of Northern Ireland and Wales, in real terms median earnings are lower than in 2008 across all countries and regions of the UK.

Pay for younger and older workers

Median weekly pay was highest for employees in their 40s at April 2019:

Following the economic downturn in 2008, median earnings decreased in real terms across age groups. At 2019, real median pay for 18-21 year olds was 2% higher than its h2008 level, but earnings for older age groups remained lower than before the downturn.

Note the charts are not tracking a particular group of people over time. Rather they are comparing people aged 40-49 (say) in 2019 with people aged 40-49 in 2008. Those aged 40-49 in 2008 will now be in their 50s, while those aged 40-49 in 2019 would have been in their 30s in 2008.

Accessing the data

The summary tables below provide data on median weekly pay for full-time employees in each year from 2008 to 2019, by region of residence and by age group.

The summary tables also show the change in median pay by gender, by region and by age group since 2008 and since 2010.

More detailed data are provided in the Earnings data tool¸ which allows users to view data on median pay for male or female, full-time or part-time employees by region and by age group back to 1997 where available. Users can select data on weekly, hourly or annual pay and can select the group of employees of interest. The tool is intended for users with specific data requirements. Guidance on interpreting the estimates and the effect of survey error is provided within the tool.

Further information

The data presented in this note are taken from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. More up to date (but much less detailed) estimates for average earnings growth are published on a monthly basis in the ONS UK Labour Market bulletin. The latest figures from both sources can be found in the Library briefing Average Earnings: Key Economic Indicators.

The Library's briefing paper on the Gender pay gap takes a detailed look at pay between men and women.

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This statistical note shows how average earnings have changed over time by region of the UK and for different age groups. Summary tables provide data on earnings by gender, by age group and by region between 2008 and 2019. More detailed data can be accessed using an Earnings data tool.

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From the Guardian.
50p at 50: how Britons' living costs have changed since 1969
The 50p coin entered circulation on 14 October 1969, in the run-up to D-Day on 15 February 1971, when the UK finally abandoned shillings and pence and moved to a decimal currency.

The 50p coin was worth a lot then - indeed, more than any coin in circulation now. In real terms it was worth the equivalent of just over £8. Fifty years on, especially after rampaging inflation in the 1970s, the 50p is a shadow of its former self - it has shrunk in size and weight, but above all in value.

But what do these figures mean in real terms? Inflation since 1969 has been an astonishing ## %, with the fast-rising "cost of living" already a major headache for the government at the end of the 1960s.

What is extraordinary about the wages data from the late 1960s is the huge gap between men and women. The ONS New Earnings Survey for 1970 shows that the average full-time male worker was paid £30 a week, while a female full-time worker earned just £16.30. Annually, that worked out at £ ## for men, which is equal to £24,050 today, but only £ ## for women, equal to £ ## today.

A look through the Guardian's classified job adverts on the day the 50p was launched gives a snapshot of what real jobs paid. The Open University, which had just been established, was hiring professors at £3,780 a year (equal to £ ## today), lecturers on a range of £ ## to £ ## (£20,153-£47,147), and secretaries on £ ## -£1,068 (£12,506-£ ##).

The Open University is still hiring - and its adverts suggest that real pay for academics has barely edged ahead in 50 years. It currently has an advert for a professor of economics on a range of £67,700-£75,800, while it pays lecturers £33,000 to £49,000. But the secretary job pays lots more in today's money, with the OU advertising a role at £23,000 to £26,000.

Work out the numbers that have been replaced by ## symbols.

What is the real-terms increase of salary for Professors, Lecturers and Secretaries (using the top of the pay scale each time)?
Answers:
Inflation since 1969 has been an astonishing 1,554%

The ONS New Earnings Survey for 1970 shows that the average full-time male worker was paid £30 a week, while a female full-time worker earned just £16.30. Annually, that worked out at £1,560 for men, which is equal to £24,050 today, but only £847.60 for women, equal to £13,068 today.

The Open University, which had just been established, was hiring professors at £3,780 a year (equal to £62,532 today), lecturers on a range of £1,240 to £2,850 (£20,153-£47,147), and secretaries on £756-£1,068 (£12,506-£17,668). Source:

Professors: an increase of 21.2%

Lecturers: increase of 3.9%

Secretaries: increase of 47.2%

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/sep/14/50p-britons-living-costs-1969-spending

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From the Guardian. 50p at 50: how Britons' living costs have changed since 1969 The 50p coin entered circulation on 14 October 1969, in the run-up to D-Day on 15 February 1971, when the UK finally abandoned shillings and pence and moved to a decimal currency.

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More info on slow reveal graphs: https://slowrevealgraphs.com/2024/11/12/netflix-keeps-pulling-ahead-of-the-competition-paid-streaming-subscribers-by-platform/

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Homeworking hours, rewards and opportunities in the UK: 2011 to 2020 - Office for National Statistics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Exploring working from home in the UK between 2011 and 2020, including the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on productivity and work success. Part of the Economic review: April 2021.

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Time is the ultimate limited resource. Every single one of us has exactly the same "time budget": 24 hours per day, 365 days per year - 8,760 hours every year of our lives.

How do we actually spend our time? There are many commonalities across the world: we all sleep, work, eat, and enjoy leisure time. But there are also important differences in the freedom people have to spend time on the things they value most. Studying how people across the world spend their time provides an important perspective for understanding living conditions, economic opportunities, and general well-being.

Here we present the data on time use. We explore how it differs across countries and over time and how these differences matter for people's lives.

Time use from the perspective of an average day

How do people across the world spend their time and what does this tell us about living conditions?

Sleep, work, eat, leisure - at a high level most of us spend time on similar activities. But just how similar are the daily activities of people across the world? This is something worth considering, not just to serve our curiosity but because differences in the way we spend time give us meaningful perspectives on living conditions, economic opportunities and general well-being.

Here we take a look at the data. We explore some of the key patterns that emerge from cross-country time use surveys, and then dig deeper to understand how these differences matter for people's well-being.

In the chart here we compare average time spent across a number of common activities. The data comes from the OECD and brings together estimates from time diaries where respondents are asked to record the sequence of what they did over a specific day, as well as from general questionnaires where respondents are asked to recall the amount of time spent on different activities on a specific day in the previous week.¹

The first thing that jumps out from this chart is that there are indeed many similarities across countries.

This is not surprising - most of us try to split our days into "work, rest and fun", and so there are some predictable patterns. We spend the most time working and sleeping; and paid work, housework, leisure, eating and sleeping take together 80-90% of the 1440 minutes that we all have available every day.

But if we look closely, we also see some important differences. Consider sleeping, for example. From this sample of countries, South Koreans sleep the least - averaging 7 hours and 51 minutes of sleep every day. In India and the US, at the other end of the spectrum, people sleep an hour more on average.

Differences in demographics, education and economic prosperity all contribute to these inequalities in work and time use. But what's clear in the chart here is that there are also some differences in time use that are not well explained by economic or demographic differences. In the UK, for example, people spend more time working than in France; but in both countries people report spending a similar amount of time on leisure activities.

Cultural differences are likely to play a role here. The French seem to spend much more time eating than the British - and in this respect the data actually goes in line with stereotypes about food culture. People in France, Greece, Italy and Spain report spending more time eating than people in most other European countries. The country where people spend the least time eating and drinking is the USA (63 minutes).

Going beyond national averages reveals important within-country inequalities. The gender gap in leisure time, for example, is a key dimension along which large inequalities exist.

The chart here relies on the same time-use data described above, but shows total leisure time for men and women separately. Time for men is shown on the horizontal axis, while time for women appears on the vertical axis. The dotted diagonal line denotes 'gender parity', so the further away a country is from the diagonal line, the larger the difference between men and women.

As we can see, in all countries the average leisure time for men is higher than for women - all bubbles are below the diagonal line - but in some countries the gaps are much larger. In Norway the difference is very small, while in Portugal men report almost 50% more leisure time than women.

Every single one of us has the same "time budget": 24 hours per day and 365 days per year. But of course not all of us can choose to spend time on the activities that we enjoy most. Differences in our freedom to allocate time to the things we enjoy is the main reason why time-use data is important for studying living conditions.

In the UK, researchers from the Centre for Time Use Research linked time-use diaries with the respondents' assessments of enjoyment, on a scale from 1 to 7, to better understand the connection between time use and well-being. The chart here, which we've adapted from the book 'What We Really Do All Day', by professors Jonathan Gershuny and Oriel Sullivan, shows the results. The estimates correspond to average reported levels of enjoyment for each activity, with confidence intervals.⁵

We see that the most enjoyed activities involve rest or leisure activities such as eating out, sleeping, going to sports events, playing computer games or attending cultural performances. The activities receiving the lowest ratings include doing school homework, looking for a job, or doing housework.

The activity where people show the greatest variation in enjoyment is working a "Second Job". This likely reflects the difference between people who work a second job because they want to, and those who work a second job because they have to.

So what do we learn from this?

But beyond this, and more importantly, this confirms that time-use is informative about well-being.

The fact that there is a very clear and predictable pattern in the enjoyment of activities suggests that differences in time use do, indeed, give us meaningful perspectives on living conditions and economic opportunities. In countries where people do more paid and unpaid work, and have less time for leisure, their enjoyment - and happiness and life satisfaction - levels are likely to be lower.

How do people rate the enjoyment of different activities?⁷

Time use from the perspective of the life cycle

Who do we spend time with across our lifetime?

As we go through life we build personal relationships with different people - family, friends, coworkers, partners. These relationships, which are deeply important to all of us, evolve with time. As we grow older we build new relationships while others transform or fade, and towards the end of life many of us spend a lot of time alone.

Taking the big picture over the entire life course: Who do we actually spend our time with?

To understand how social connections evolve throughout our lives we can look at survey data on how much time people spend with others, and who that time is spent with.

The chart here shows the amount of time that people in the US report spending in the company of others, based on their age. The data comes from time-use surveys, where people are asked to list all the activities that they perform over a full day, and the people who were there during each activity. We currently only have data with this granularity for the US - time-use surveys are common across many countries, but what is special about the US is that respondents of the American Time Use Survey are asked to list everyone who was present for each activity.

The numbers in this chart are based on averages for a cross-section of the American society - people are only interviewed once, but we have brought together a decade of surveys, tabulating the average amount of time that survey respondents of different ages report spending with other people. ⁸

Who we spend our time with changes a lot over the course of life

When we're young - particularly in our teens - we spend a lot of our time with friends, parents, siblings and extended family. As we enter our 20s, time with friends, siblings and parents starts to drop off quickly. Instead, we start spending an increasing amount of time with partners and children. (The chart shows an average across Americans, so for those that have children the time spent with children is even higher, since the average is pulled down by those without children.)

As the chart shows, this continues throughout our 30s, 40s and 50s - over this period of their life, Americans spend much of their time with partners, children and, unsurprisingly, co-workers.

For those 60 and older, we see a significant drop-off in time spent with co-workers. This makes sense, considering many people in the US enter retirement in their mid 60s. We see that this time is partly displaced by more time with partners.

In terms of the diversity of interactions, this chart suggests that the number of people with whom we interact is highest around 40, but then things change substantially after that. And this is perhaps the most conspicuous trend in the chart: above 40, people spend an increasing amount of time alone.

Older people spend a large amount of time alone and it is understandable why - time spent alone increases with age because this is when health typically deteriorates and people lose relatives and friends.

Indeed, many people who are older than 60 live alone as this chart shows clearly: living alone is particularly common for older adults. Today nearly 4 out of every 10 Americans who are older than 89 years old live alone.

Another interesting point here is that the share of people across all age groups who live alone has been increasing over time. This is part of a more general global trend - if you want to read more about the global 'rise of living alone', we provide a detailed account of this trend across countries in a companion post.

The data shows that as we become older we tend to spend more and more time alone. What's more, the data also shows that older people today spend more time alone than older people did in the past.

We might think older people are therefore more lonely - but this is not necessarily the case.

Spending time alone is not the same as feeling lonely. This is a point that is well recognised by researchers, and one which has been confirmed empirically across countries. Surveys that ask people about living arrangements, time use, and feelings of loneliness find that solitude, by itself, is not a good predictor of loneliness. You can read our overview of the evidence in this post.

So, what about loneliness? If we focus on self-reported loneliness, there is little evidence of an upward trend over time in the US; and importantly, it's not the case that loneliness keeps going up as we become older. In fact a recent study based on surveys that track the same individuals over time found that after age 50 - which is the earliest age of participants in the analysis - loneliness tended to decrease, until about 75, after which it began to increase again.

Taking the evidence together, the message is not that we should be sad about the prospect of aging, but rather that we should recognise the fact that social connections are complex. We often tend to look at the amount of time spent with others as a marker of social well-being; but the quality of time spent with others, and our expectations, matter even more for our feelings of connection and loneliness.

A note about the interpretation of age trends

Parents' time with children

Are parents spending less time with their kids?

Over the last 50 years many countries have seen large changes in family structures and the institution of marriage. These changes - which include a rise in single-parenting and a large increase in the share of women working outside the home - have made some people worry that children might be getting 'short-changed', because parents are not spending as much time with them.

In 1999, for example, a report from the Council of Economic Advisors in the US analyzed trends over the second half of the 20th century and concluded: "The increase in hours mothers spend in paid work, combined with the shift toward single-parent families, resulted in families on average experiencing a decrease of 22 hours a week (14 percent) in parental time available outside of paid work that they could spend with their children."

The line of thought behind these concerns is that changes to the structure of families and work have meant that children spend less time with parents, because parents - particularly mothers - spend less time at home.

Here we review the evidence and show that this reasoning is flawed. As we explain, in the US and many other rich countries parents spend more time with their kids today than 50 years ago. Equating 'mother time at home' with 'children's time with parents' is a huge and unhelpful oversimplification.

The chart here shows the time that mothers and fathers spend with their children. This is measured using time-use diaries where parents record the amount of time that they spend on various activities, including child care.

These estimates, which are sourced from a paper published in 2016 by sociologists Giulia Dotti Sani and Judith Treas, are disaggregated by education levels and are adjusted to account for demographic differences between countries. We explain below in more detail why these adjustments are important.⁹

As we can see here, there has been a clear increase in the amount of time parents spend with their children over the last 50 years. This is true for both fathers and mothers, and holds across almost all education groups and countries. The two exceptions are France, where mothers' time has declined (from a very comparatively high level); and Slovenia where it has remained roughly constant among non-university-educated parents.

In terms of within-country inequalities we also see two clear patterns. First, in all countries mothers spend more time in child care activities than fathers. The differences are large and persistent across education groups. In some countries, such as Canada, France and the US, this gender gap has shrunk; while in other countries such as Denmark and Spain, the gap has widened.

Second, in all countries there is a positive 'educational gradient', meaning more educated parents tend to spend more time with their children. In many countries this gradient increased, and nowhere did it decline.

How much time do parents spend with their children per day?¹⁰

Digging Deeper: Raw vs Population-adjusted Trends in Time Use

The analysis above looked at time-use diaries from parents. But children may experience time and attention differently from adults. Is there evidence that children also feel they are getting more time with their parents?

In a study published in 2001 in the journal Demography, John Sandberg and Sandra Hofferth analyzed two surveys with data from child time-use diaries in the US, and found that children reported spending about 4.3 more hours per week with mothers, and 3 more hours per week with fathers in 1997 versus 1981.¹¹

The data is sparse because time-use diaries for children are not very common; but the evidence that is available is consistent with what we've seen above: Children in the US agree that they're spending more time with their parents than in the past.

The amount of time that parents spend with their children is determined by many factors, and working hours outside the home are only one of them. Choices, parenting norms, family size, and relationship ideals - for men and women, parents and children - matter a lot.

Several academic studies have dissected the data from the US in an attempt to disentangle the relative importance of different underlying factors. The conclusion from these studies is that the reason why we see an increase in the amount of time that American parents spend with kids is that many families, particularly those who are well-off, have been able to undergo changes in their routines and the allocation of tasks and time within the household, in order to spend more time with their children. Parents have been able to undergo 'behavioral changes' that have more than compensated for 'structural changes' that could have pushed in the opposite direction.¹²

Employment, and in particular working hours outside the home, determine a range of possible arrangements, but individual preferences and social conventions determine the actual allocation of time within that range of feasible options.

Preferences and social conventions are dynamic and change with time. There is a large academic literature that emphasizes the importance of parent-child interactions for children's development, and it seems natural to allow for the possibility that in recent decades parenting norms have undergone considerable change in response to this scientific evidence.¹³

The available data shows that in many countries parents spend more time with their kids than ever before, and this is partly due to changes in social conventions and economic progress, especially declining working hours.

There are large differences between countries, and also large inequalities across different population groups within each country; but overall the trends tend to go in the same direction.

Of course, there's a lot that is not being captured by these aggregate statistics. There are important distributional issues, and there is also clearly more to parents' and children's welfare than 'total time spent together'. But despite these limitations, the available research and data still offers a clear lesson: contrary to what some people fear, it's not the case that children in rich countries are being systematically 'shortchanged' by widespread changes in family structures.

Parents are spending more time with their kids than they used to, and this matters because parent-child interactions are important for childhood development.

Are we working more than ever?

In today's hustle and bustle world, it's easy to assume that we are all, by and large, working more than ever. But is that really the case?

As we explain in detail below, the research on the history of working hours shows that this is not the case.

The available data shows that in the 19th century people across the world used to work extremely long hours, but in the last 150 years working hours have decreased substantially, particularly in today's richest countries.

The chart here shows average working hours since 1870 for a selection of countries that industrialized early. You can add or remove countries by clicking Add country on the chart.

We show annual totals, so the trends account for changes in both the length of working days as well as the number of days worked through the year. The data comes from research by the economic historians Michael Huberman and Chris Minns, who have brought together evidence from historical records, National Accounts data, and other sources.¹⁴

The chart shows that average working hours declined dramatically for workers in early-industrialized economies over the last 150 years. In 1870, workers in most of these countries worked more than 3,000 hours annually - equivalent to a grueling 60-70 hours each week for 50 weeks per year.

But we see that today those extreme working hours have been roughly cut in half. In Germany, for example, annual working hours decreased by nearly 60% - from 3,284 hours in 1870 to 1,354 hours in 2017 - and in the UK the decrease was around 40%. Before this revolution in working hours people worked as many hours between January and July as we work today in an entire year.¹⁵

For many countries in the chart we don't have long-run series going back to the 19th century. But we do have evidence from other historical records from 1870-1900 that in many of those countries workers also used to work extremely long hours.¹⁶

For those countries with long-run data in this chart we can see three distinct periods: From 1870-1913 there was a relatively slow decline; then from 1913-1938 the decline in hours steepened in the midst of the powerful sociopolitical, technological, and economic changes that took shape with World War I, the Great Depression, and the lead-up to World War II; and then after an uptick in hours during and just after World War II, the decline in hours continued for many countries, albeit at a slower pace and with large differences between countries.¹⁷

Zooming in to the last 70 years and looking at other countries beyond those who industrialized early, the data reveals a continued decline in working hours for many countries but also large differences between countries.

In the chart here we zoom in to the period since 1950 and we change the selection of countries to highlight some of the diversity in trends.

For some countries, such as Germany, working hours have continued their steep historical decline; while for other countries, such as the US, the decline has leveled off in recent decades.

In some countries we see an inverted U-shaped pattern. In South Korea, for example, hours rose dramatically between 1950 and 1980 before falling again since the mid 1980s. And in other countries we see no recent declines - in China, for example, hours actually rose in the 1990s and early 2000s before leveling off in recent years.

The decline in annual working hours described above has come from fewer working hours each day, as well as fewer working days each week and fewer working weeks in the year.

"The length of the work day fell sharply between the 1880s, when the typical worker labored 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and 1920, when his counterpart worked an 8-hour day, 6 days a week. By 1940 the typical work schedule was 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Although further reductions in work time largely took the form of increases in vacations, holidays, sick days, personal leave, and earlier retirement, time diary studies suggest that the work day has continued to trend downward less than 8 hours a day."

As Costa notes, workers had regular days off each week: one day off (usually Sunday) from at least the 1880s until around the 1940s, when two days off became more typical.

In addition to regular days off each week, workers across early-industrialized countries had days off from work for vacations and national holidays. This is shown in the chart here, which again relies on research from Huberman and Minns. The chart shows that days of vacation and holidays increased over the period from 1870-2000. The Netherlands is a stark example - workers there saw an increase from four days off for vacations and holidays in 1870 to almost 38 days off in 2000.

The evidence presented here comes from decades of work from economic historians and other researchers. Of course, the data is not perfect - as we explain in a forthcoming post, measuring working hours with accuracy is difficult, and surveys and historical records have limitations, so estimates of working hours spanning centuries necessarily come with a margin of error. But for any given country, the changes across time are much larger than the error margins at any point in time: The average worker in a rich country today really does work many fewer hours than the average worker 150 years ago.

As the economists Diane Coyle and Leonard Nakamura explain, the study of working hours is crucial not only to measure macroeconomic productivity, but also to measure economic well-being beyond economic output. A more holistic framework for measuring 'progress' needs to consider changes in how people are allowed to allocate their time over multiple activities, among which paid work is only one.²⁰

The available evidence shows that, rather than working more than ever, workers in many countries today work much less than in the past 150 years. There are huge inequalities within and across countries, but substantial progress has been made.

Do workers in richer countries work longer hours?

Economic prosperity in different places across our world today is vastly unequal. People in Switzerland, one of the richest countries in the world, have an average income that is more than 20-times higher than that of people in Cambodia.²¹ Life in these two countries can look starkly different.²²

When considering such differences in prosperity, a natural question is: who works more, people in richer countries like Switzerland or in poorer ones like Cambodia?

Looking at the available data, the answer is clear: workers in poorer countries actually tend to work more, and sometimes much more.

We see that in the chart here, with GDP per capita on the horizontal axis and annual working hours per worker on the vertical axis.

Countries like Cambodia (which is the country in the very top-left corner) or Myanmar have some of the lowest GDP per capita but highest working hours. In Cambodia the average worker puts in 2,456 hours each year, nearly 900 more hours than in Switzerland (1,590 hours) at the bottom-right of the chart. The extra 900 hours for Cambodian workers means longer work days and many fewer days off.

There is a link between national income and average working hours, not only across countries at a given point in time - as shown in the chart above - but also for individual countries over time.

Since the Industrial Revolution people in many countries have become richer, and working hours have decreased dramatically over these last 150 years.

In the chart here we show this association between incomes and working hours over time, country by country. It is the same chart as above, except now countries' single data points have become lines, connecting observations over time from 1950 until today.

The four highlighted countries exemplify how working hours have decreased at the same time that average incomes have increased. Germany, for example, moved far to the right as its GDP per capita increased more than 10-fold (from $5,227 to $51,191), and far to the bottom as working hours decreased by nearly half (from 2,428 hours to 1,386 hours each year).²³

This makes sense: as people's incomes rise they can afford more of the things they enjoy, including more leisure and less time spent working.

You can explore this association for other countries by clicking "Select countries" on the chart.

The key driver of rising national incomes and decreasing working hours is productivity growth.

Productivity refers to the rate at which inputs are turned into outputs. To understand working hours the key metric is labor productivity: the economic return for one hour of work.

At the most concrete level, labor productivity captures things like the number of breads that a baker bakes in an hour, or the number of cars factory workers assemble in an hour. At the most comprehensive level, it relates the total output of the economy (GDP) to the total labor input (total annual hours worked), giving us the aggregate measure of labor productivity, GDP per hour of work.

Higher labor productivity is associated with fewer working hours, as shown in the chart here with labor productivity on the horizontal axis and annual working hours on the vertical axis. The chart currently shows data for the latest available year, but you can explore this relationship over time since 1950 by using the blue time slider at the bottom of the chart.

We see that the same richer countries with lower working hours we noted before - like Germany and Switzerland - have very high labor productivity (69 and 83 $/h, respectively). If workers can produce more with each hour of work, it becomes possible for them to work less.

Though this doesn't necessarily mean they actually do work less - workers in the US and Singapore, for instance, work many more hours than their counterparts in countries with similar productivity.²⁴

In contrast, the countries toward the top-left of this chart have far lower labor productivity - Cambodia, for example, is at only 3$/h - and thus workers there need to work many more hours to compensate.

Technological innovation - defined broadly here to include physical machines as well as ideas, knowledge, and processes - makes it possible for each worker to become much more productive. And increases in productivity in turn help drive both increases in incomes and decreases in working hours.²⁵

A prime example of how tech innovation drives productivity growth is agriculture. As we show in detail in our entry on Crop Yields, innovations like better machinery, crop varieties, fertilizers, and land management have enabled farmers to be much more productive. In the US, for example, farm production per labor hour increased nearly 16-fold from 1948-2011.²⁶ This increased productivity enables us to feed a rapidly growing population, even while the fraction of people working in agriculture is smaller than ever.²⁷

The chart here shows the growth in labor productivity, not just for agriculture but for the entire economy. The technological, economic, and social structures in richer countries have enabled workers there to produce more while working less.

The data show that it is workers in poorer countries who tend to work more, and sometimes a lot more, than those in richer countries.

This has large implications for the way we think about the economic progress made in the last two centuries and the nature of inequality between countries today.

It means that residents of today's poorer countries like Cambodia and Myanmar - and also of today's richer countries in the past when they were poor - are not just consumption poor, often unable to afford necessities like food and medicine. It means they are also leisure poor: because productivity is low and they must work so much just to scrape by, they can't afford to spend much time improving their condition, becoming educated, or simply enjoying leisure time.

That people in poorer countries work so much more than in richer countries shows that differences in prosperity are not due to differences in work ethic - they are largely due to differences in circumstance and opportunity. As we ask in another post, "what would have been the chances for Steve Jobs if he was born in the Central African Republic?" No matter how hard he worked or how smart he was, it is difficult to imagine that Steve Jobs would've been able to realize his potential with such a steep mountain of inequality to climb.

We also see what the world misses out on when exceptionally talented people, including all the brilliant but underprivileged people in today's poorest countries, don't have the opportunity to realize their potential.²⁹

Finding ways to raise productivity is therefore not just key to increasing production, but also to the reduction in working hours that is necessary for a society to flourish.

How are working hours measured and what can we learn from the data?

Work is a central part of our lives. It is something we do almost every day, for much of the day, for decades on end. Because it is so central, looking closely at how much time we spend working can tell us a lot about our lives and the societies we live in.

The data on working hours shows, for example, that rather than working more than ever - as is so commonly believed - people in many countries today work much less than in the past 150 years.

Working less means being able to spend time becoming more educated, or simply enjoying more leisure time. This is substantial progress, but there is still huge inequality across countries, and progress still to make.

To understand these changes in societies and people's lives over time, and the substantial differences we see in the world today, it is crucial to measure and study how much time people spend working.

How are working hours actually measured? Where does the data come from, and how can researchers reconstruct long-run trends?

Here we provide an overview of the main data sources, compare the data, and explain the relevant differences and measurement limitations.

Surveys

Surveys are the primary way to collect data on working hours. They are typically conducted by national statistical agencies and come in three main types: labor force surveys, establishment surveys, and time use surveys. These surveys all provide an important perspective on working hours, but there are some key differences.

Labor force surveys collect data on employment status and time spent working by asking individual workers themselves. Of the survey types, these provide the most comprehensive perspective, covering hours actually worked in all economic sectors as part of both formal and informal employment, full-time and part-time, as well as self-employment and unpaid family work.³⁰ But labor force surveys only cover residents of a country above a certain age (usually 15), which depending on the country might exclude a non-trivial number of workers.³¹

Establishment surveys collect data on employment and working hours as reported by employers.³² But because hours are reported by employers, these surveys often only cover paid or contractual hours and exclude self-employment, informal work, and some smaller firms.³³ On the other hand, establishment surveys provide more detail on the industry of work than other surveys, and are more consistent with how GDP is measured, making them useful for studying labor productivity.

National accounts

To get the most comprehensive perspective on working hours possible, many countries aggregate data from these surveys with data from other sources - such as censuses, tax records, and social security registers - in an economic measurement framework called national accounts.

National accounts, and the surveys they rely on, are standardized to a degree across countries, which can facilitate international comparisons.³⁵

But these comparisons often have limitations because many countries still implement the methods in different ways. For instance, countries might bring together different data in their national accounts, or aggregate it differently. And many countries don't have the capacity to conduct comprehensive surveys of their labor force and produce national accounts-based statistics, giving a more limited view of work there.³⁶

Through often painstaking effort, researchers have been able to find and piece together the relevant historical records that do exist. In the work of Huberman and Minns, one of the key sources for historical data on many countries is a report from the US Department of Labor published in 1900.³⁸ The report compiled the records of many thousands of workers across numerous sectors from establishment surveys in 88 countries and territories. To reconstruct the trends in later years, Huberman and Minns pulled together data from the International Labor Organization, the work of peer researchers, and other sources.³⁹

This was an impressive feat of reconstruction, but historical records like this do have limitations. For instance, as exhaustive as they were, the establishment-level records used by Huberman and Minns still excluded agricultural work, part-time work, and many smaller firms.

The work by Huberman and Minns is an important example of how researchers often combine and adjust underlying sources to produce one-off cross-country estimates. Another important study is the one of Bick, Brüggemann, and Fuchs-Schündeln (2019),⁴⁰ who further standardized labor force surveys to enhance comparability for a selection of countries.

Besides these one-off estimates, several international organizations and research centers aggregate the working hours estimates published by national statistical agencies into cross-country datasets. The two most important datasets come from the OECD and the Penn World Table (PWT). These both draw on national accounts estimates when available, but they can differ in the other sources they use and their method of aggregation.⁴¹

In the chart you can compare annual working hours data from these four datasets. The data is shown one country at a time - with France currently selected. You can look at other countries by clicking 'Change country' on the chart, but note that not all sources publish data for every country.

As expected, there are differences between the sources. In 2000, for instance, Bick et al. estimates 1,642 hours of work for French workers, OECD estimates 1,558 hours, PWT estimates 1,550 hours, and Huberman and Minns estimates 1,443 hours. These differences are due to the use of different underlying sources and methods. Bick et al. use only labor force surveys; the others all rely primarily on national accounts data, but which nonetheless still have differences.

It's also clear that these differences between sources are quite small when compared to the huge changes over the longer run. The difference between sources in 2000 is at most 200 hours, while the historical data from Huberman and Minns shows that from 1870 to 2000 annual working hours in France decreased by 1,725 hours (from 3,168 to 1,443 hours).

The analysis here shows that working hours data can have limitations - due to differences in the sources or the way the method is implemented - but that what these matter for our interpretation of the data depends on the context.

In a context where precise comparisons of similar countries is important, smaller differences between sources can really matter. This is why to compare recent working hours levels in the US and Europe, Bick et al. used only labor force surveys, which they standardized even further to maximize cross-country comparability. But as a trade-off, it was only possible to look at a small selection of richer countries.

In a context where we want to focus on a larger scale - such as the long-run historical trends we see in the chart - the limitations of the sources are not large enough to undermine our conclusions.

PWT and OECD are also useful in contexts where we want an exhaustive picture of the trends in individual countries, since they are often based on national accounts that bring together data from many sources to give a comprehensive perspective on working hours.

The data on working hours isn't perfect, and it's important to understand the limitations, but it can still tell us a lot about our lives and the world.

Data: Time spent on various activities per day, by sex

Geographical coverage: OECD countries plus China, India, and South Africa

Time span: from 1998 onwards

Available at: Time Use Database; Gender Data Portal

Data: Time spent on various activities per day; self-reported levels of enjoyment

Geographical coverage: 30 countries across the world

Time span: from 1964 onwards

Available at: https://www.timeuse.org/
Gershuny, J., and Sullivan, O. (2019). What We Really Do All Day: Insights from the Centre for Time Use Research. Penguin UK.

Data: Average annual hours worked by persons engaged; number of persons engaged; real and PPP-adjusted GDP in US millions of dollars

Geographical coverage: Countries across the world

Time span: from 1950 onwards

Available at: https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/productivity/pwt/

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How do people across the world spend their time? How do daily activities differ across countries, and how do these differences matter for people's lives? Explore data and research on time use.

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This activity invites students to think about how they use their time and how that time use changes for Americans over their lives. They'll predict by sketching graphs. Then they'll see the actual data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/tus/

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Article - people who wfh all the time 'cut emissions by 54%'

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Article - people who wfh all the time 'cut emissions by 54%'

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People who work remotely all the time produce less than half the greenhouse gas emissions of office workers, according to a new study.

Employees in the US who worked from home all the time were predicted to reduce their emissions by 54%, compared with workers in an office, the study found. But hybrid workers did not reduce their emissions so dramatically, according to the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One day of remote work a week reduced emissions by just 2% because energy savings from not being in the office were offset by factors such as an increase in non-commuting travel when working from home. Working remotely two or four days a week reduced an individual's emissions by up to 29% compared with on-site workers.

Researchers from Cornell University and Microsoft used multiple datasets including Microsoft's own employee data on commuting and teleworking behaviours to model the predicted greenhouse gas emissions of office workers, remote workers and hybrid workers in the US, examining five categories of emissions including office and residential energy use.

They found that IT and communications technology had a negligible impact on individuals' work carbon footprints.

The main causes of remote workers' reduced emissions were less office energy use, as well as fewer emissions from a daily commute.

Wider emissions reducing benefits of working from home include the easing of vehicle congestion during rush hour in commuting areas, which is likely to improve fuel economy. But the authors warned that working from home needed to be carefully planned to deliver emissions saving benefits.

"People say: 'I work from home, I'm net zero.' That's not true," said the co-author Fengqi You of Cornell University. "The net benefit for working remotely is positive but a key question is how positive. When people work remotely, they tend to spend more emissions on social activities."

The study found that remote workers' non-work travel increased, with more driving and more flying. You said that homes were not always optimised for decarbonisation, in terms of using renewable energy and the efficiency of appliances, and there were some scale-related energy savings. For instance, a small home printer is likely to be less energy efficient than an office printer.

The Covid-19 pandemic created a remote working revolution for many office workers. In the US and elsewhere, many people relocated from "high-density commuting zones" - relatively close to major cities and offices - to more rural "low-density commuting zones". According to the study, this could result in longer commuting distances for hybrid workers and a greater carbon footprint due to the increased use of private vehicles.

The authors said: "While remote work shows potential in reducing carbon footprint, careful consideration of commuting patterns, building energy consumption, vehicle ownership, and non-commute-related travel is essential to fully realise its environmental benefits."

While the findings do not apply to workers in many sectors - a bus driver, for example, cannot work from home - it provides pointers on how office-based employers can reduce company emissions.

You said that while the findings were specific to the US, the modelling and trends were likely to be replicated in Europe and Japan. He called on companies to look at energy efficiency measures, downsizing and sharing office space. "By sharing office space we reduce capacity and size and reduce our office energy consumption," he said.

The study found that IT and communications accounted for a small percentage of overall emissions and therefore emissions reduction should focus on renewables for office heating and cooling, as well as decarbonising commuting.

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People who work from home all the time 'cut emissions by 54%' against those in office

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Study in US shows one day a week of remote working cuts emissions by just 2% but two or four days lowers them by up to 29%

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Bar chart race - US subscribers to streaming services

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Bar chart race - US subscribers to streaming services

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Video insight: SVoD subscriptions in the US (2007-2021)

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This bar chart race shows the evolution of subscriber numbers for the largest SVoD services in the US.

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Article - Britons will soon spend more on streaming than TV

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Article - Britons will soon spend more on streaming than TV

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Britons will soon spend more on streaming than TV, analysts say

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UK households forecast to spend £4.2bn on Netflix and other services by 2025, overtaking TV packages

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Maths Emporium

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People in work - Office for National Statistics

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Employment data covering employment rates, hours of work, claimants and earnings.