Countries With The Best Work Life Balance: 2023 Trends

January 27, 2023

The 2023 Salary & Recruiting Trends report by Hays, which looked at data from more than 5,000 employers and 8,000-plus professionals, has found that 33% of workers consider work-life balance to be the most crucial consideration when looking for a job. Furthermore, 28% of employees would accept a lower paid job for a better work-life balance.

So how well do UK workers perform compared to other countries in finding a suitable balance between work and life?

According to the Better Life Index produced by the OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) the UK performs well in many dimensions of well-being relative to other countries.

Babel Group Countries With The Best Work Life Balance

10% of employees in OECD countries work 50 hours or more per week in paid work.
At 27%, Mexico has the highest proportion of people working very long hours in paid work, followed by Turkey with nearly 25% and Colombia with almost 24%.
Italy, Denmark, Norway, Spain and The Netherlands outperform the average in achieving the best work-life balance. With family time being such an important aspect of Italian culture, the country has capped the number of hours you can be asked to work at 40. Just 4% of employees work longer hours.
Other low-ranking countries include Japan, South Africa and Korea. Although most employees in the Republic of Korea enjoy near OECD-average leisure time of 14.6 hours a day, a culture of long working hours and unpaid overtime pushes the country down the rankings.

The more people work, the less time they have to spend on other activities, such as time with others, leisure activities, eating or sleeping. In the UK, full-time workers devote 62% (14.9 hours) of their day on average to personal care – eating, sleeping etc., and leisure – socialising with friends and family, hobbies, games, computer and television use, etc., which is close to the OECD average of 15 hours.

When asked to rate their general satisfaction with life on a scale from 0 to 10, British people gave it a 6.8 grade on average, slightly higher than the OECD average of 6.7.

How do you feel your work/life balance is right now?

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