Amidst debate on working hours, a working paper from Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) has said that government employees work much less than corporate employees.

The paper has been prepared by Shamika Ravi, member of the EAC-PM. She has used time-use data (published in 2019) in the paper, titled ‘Time Spent on Employment-Related Activities in India: A Note.’

Five facts

In a social media post, she highlighted five key facts — Indians work similar hours to other emerging economies but significantly more than developed countries; Urban Indians in regular jobs at private or public limited companies work the most hours; Government employees work fewer hours than the average Indian and significantly less than private or public limited company employees; Among states, all Northeastern states, Assam, and Goa report fewer working hours.; Longer working hours are strongly correlated with higher per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

“One of our main findings is that on an average, Indians spend 422 minutes per day on paid economic activities or 42 hours per week (assuming six days per week), which is significantly lower than the 700 minutes per day or 70 hours per week benchmark expectation being set. However, Indians report working hours which are comparable to other fast developing countries like Vietnam, China, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Most developed OECD countries report much lower working hours (33 hours per week on average for OECD group),” the paper said.

This paper has come at a debate after a recent remark by L&T Chairman SN Subrahmanyan where he suggested a 90-hour work week for his employees, expressing regret about not being able to include Sundays in the work schedule. Earlier, in October 2023, Narayana Murthy of Infosys proposed that young Indians should work 70 hours a week, citing India’s low productivity compared to global standards. He urged the youth to adopt a mindset of hard work.

Men-women divide

Meanwhile, the paper said that while an average individual in urban India works for 469 minutes (or 7.8 hours) per day, an average individual in rural India works for 399 minutes (or 6.65 hours) per day. But even here, the variations across States and regions are strong with North-Eastern States, Assam, and Goa reporting significantly lesser time spent on work.

Another important finding was that Indian women spend considerably fewer hours on paid economic activities compared to their male counterparts. In the urban areas, women are spending 2 hours lesser than men each day, while in rural areas women spend 1.8 hours lesser than men on paid economic activities each day. In fact, the overall results show that male-female differences are significantly more than the urban-rural differences.

“This is due to traditional roles, where women spend significantly more time on unpaid household activities. In fact, comparing data on leisure, we find that women who work outside the household (paid economic activities) have the least amount of leisure time compared to all other demographics,” the paper explained.

Published on January 24, 2025