Europe’s Vacation Time – Just More Work at Home?

Fortune has an article online which uses recent research to turn a long-held notion on its head: that European workers have an easier time (and, sometimes the argument goes, are lazier) than Americans because of their (substantially) longer periods of vacation. What does more time at home and less time at work really mean? More work at home!

By working long hours and taking short vacations, Americans earn money to buy goods in the market. By working fewer hours and taking long vacations, Germans have more time to produce goods at home.

They also have a bit on how this has affected women in the workplace:

In America it’s easy to buy prepared meals, child care, and such, so it’s “easy for educated women to work in the market,” as Freeman and Schettkat observe, whereas in Germany, “the lack of such alternatives makes full-time employment of women difficult.” Thus, German women have far weaker incentives to go to college.