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Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

forbes.com

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Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#41

Post by CardenB »

tbrownaw wrote: post #37
CardenB wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because you don't have evidence to support your theory. You're generalizing with insufficient data.

I disagree. It's not insufficient data, it's uncharacterized data. If more-or-less everyone with exposure to both cultures is in broad agreement about the differences, that's not "insufficient". It's probably actually more data than any formal study would generate. But it's also lower-quality data, with a greater chance of being distorted by various cognitive biases. Which means that it doesn't meet current regulator…

How do you know if it's "more-or-less everyone" without a formal study to prove it? You only know anecdotally, which, as you said, is subject to various cognitive biases.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#42

Post by 31reasons »

danharaj wrote: post #33
31reasons wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet provides you access to unlimited amount of information that basically allows people to create their own automation solutions. Why do you have to depend on rich to provide it ? The whole idea of Rich and Poor is based on Scarcity of goods. When we enter the era of full automation, we will be able to convert Energy into any form of product without human intervention. Energy + AI = Products.

> The whole idea of Rich and Poor is based on Scarcity of goods. No, actually, it's based on ownership of the means of production.

True only in the absence of strong AI.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#43

Post by hueving »

nightcracker wrote: post #39
rahimnathwani wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is overly-simplistic, and misses three key points: 1) Labour productivity is measured as the _average_ output per worker, i.e. total output divided by total number of workers. It does not measure the _marginal_ output of an additional worker (i.e. the derivative of output with respect to number of workers). 2) Labour is not the only factor of production. There is also land, financial capital, technology, etc. 3)…

So if I understand correctly we should compare: 1. Median household income (which should mostly be wages and not land, financial capital, technology). 2. Divided by purchasing power parity (to normalize for different prices in the country). 3. Divided by average hours worked per week for households with median income. This is however assuming that if an employee gets paid X (in purchasing power parity) for their work…

None of that would account for a massive national surplus of a globally demanded resource (oil in Norway's case). A strong currency based on heavy exports of energy can subsidize all of the other factors.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#44

Post by will_pseudonym »

ronnier wrote: post #36
patio11 wrote: post #2

Japanese workers are offered an average of twenty days off each year and take only twelve, leaving eight unused vacation days lying on the table. No lie, that's a qualified success: it used to be 14 days offered and 8 exercised in Japan, as recently as a few years ago. (The 2006ish timeframe? Read it in a work-related report. [+]) [+] Proving once again that you can almost never underestimate how bad the Japanese wor…

At my company in Japan, we had 20 public holidays though. That's a lot more than we get in the US. But those public holidays come at a cost -- trying to do any sort of activity during Golden Week is next to impossible because of overcrowding.

That just sounds outright stressful. That sounds like Black Friday shopping in the USA, something I avoid like the plague every year.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#46

Post by michael_fine »

CardenB wrote: post #41
tbrownaw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It's not insufficient data, it's uncharacterized data. If more-or-less everyone with exposure to both cultures is in broad agreement about the differences, that's not "insufficient". It's probably actually more data than any formal study would generate. But it's also lower-quality data, with a greater chance of being distorted by various cognitive biases. Which means that it doesn't meet current regulator…

How do you know if it's "more-or-less everyone" without a formal study to prove it? You only know anecdotally, which, as you said, is subject to various cognitive biases.

But there are plenty of things that we only know anecdotally -- that one restaurant has bad service, or that line cooks smoke more than usual -- that no one gets up in arms about when we generalize in those cases. Formal studies are great when they exist, but in the absence of them it's only practical to extrapolate from incomplete data.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#47

Post by dogma1138 »

Is there some way to normalize this with average income per employee, number of public holidays, non-paid leave taken, actual average retirement age, and non standard vacations like sabbaticals (Pretty much everyone I ever known to take a sabbatical/career break for a year or so was from the US)? Because this would be actually quit interesting to check, otherwise it's just quite random correlation.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#48

Post by smt88 »

cft wrote: post #27

I know that correlation does not imply causation, but EU GDP growth is the lowest in the world [1], while Asian is the highest. 1. https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/economic-dat...

I'd prefer to live in a country with low GDP growth and have an enjoyable life than kill myself with work.

Re: Study Finds That Asians Take Fewest Vacation Days, Europeans Take Most

#50

Post by will_pseudonym »

hueving wrote: post #43
nightcracker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I understand correctly we should compare: 1. Median household income (which should mostly be wages and not land, financial capital, technology). 2. Divided by purchasing power parity (to normalize for different prices in the country). 3. Divided by average hours worked per week for households with median income. This is however assuming that if an employee gets paid X (in purchasing power parity) for their work…

None of that would account for a massive national surplus of a globally demanded resource (oil in Norway's case). A strong currency based on heavy exports of energy can subsidize all of the other factors.

All you have to do is estimate the impact to GDP that has on Norway, and pull it out from the comparison.
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