'Laid-back' Aussies? Think again

Australians work some of the longest hours in the developed world, starting with their prime minister, dubbed "Kevin 24/7."

Brigid DelaneyAugust 24, 2009 06:02Updated May 30, 2010 12:05

A man sunbathes — in a pose made famous by the celebrated Australian photographer Max Dupain — at a beach in Melbourne on Jan. 31, 2009, as the temperature hits 110.84 degrees Fahrenheit. (Mick Tsikas/Reuters)

MELBOURNE — What comes to mind when you think of Australia?

A relaxed, laidback lifestyle? The laconic Crocodile Dundee character? A place of endless barbeques, where the sun’s always shining and the beach always beckoning?

Think again. Recent studies have shown that Australia is a nation of strivers, not skivers (that's Aussie slang for "lazy"). They are among the most overworked people in the world, more at home behind a desk than catching a wave.

In a 23-country study, Australia ranked among the worst — alongside the U.S. and U.K. — in terms of long working hours, occupational stress and poor work-life balance. Since 1964, the average working week for white collar workers has gone up by more than 10 hours. Australian Bureau of Statistics data had shown that by 2007 almost a third of Australians worked unsocial hours. The average working week was 44 hours, with 35 percent of male full-time workers and 19 percent of full-time working women slaving away for 50 hours or more a week.

“Overall, the evidence is unambiguous: Australian full-time employees are working extremely long hours,” said Brigid van Wanrooy, lead researcher Workplace Research Center at the University of Sydney. “Full-time employees are working an average of 44 hours per week. In the international standards we've got some of the longest full-time working ours among the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.”

Many Australians worked even more than 44 hours per week, and nearly one in three wanted to reduce their hours. “One in five workers work more than 50 hours a week, so that equates to around 2 million people,” she said.

“The major difference between America and Australia (in working hours) is that America doesn’t have the same level of part-time work as we do," Van Wanrooy told GlobalPost. "So if you take our aggregate hours, it looks like Americans are working just as much as we are, if not more. But if we only look at full-timers, which is quite sensible when looking at long hours of work, we find that we are generally working longer hours — although the Americans, British and New Zealanders are up there too. "The common link between the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand and Australia is that we don’t have any real regulation of working hours which I believe is a major factor in the working hours problem. But obviously there are a whole range of factors that have led to long working hours, such as consumption patterns, competitive pressures and cultures that reward long hours.”

A typical example of an overworked Australian is Romi Patterson, a 38-year-old massage therapist. He works three days a week in his own business, and the other four days at a day spa that is more than an hour’s commute each way from his home.