Countries With The Best Work Life Balance: 2023 Trends

• 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?