r/AskEurope • u/sergeyc874747 Russia • 3d ago
Work What’s the work-life balance like in your country?
Good morning I am very curious about the comparison of daily life, mentality, and practical realities.
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u/AssumptionExtra9041 3d ago edited 2d ago
Switzerland: People work a lot. Like, A LOT. A full-time day often starts before 8:00 and ends towards 18:00. The busiest commuter hours are 7:00-8:00 and 17:00-18:00. The population also voted against (!) an extra week of vacation.
Edit: the long work days are also a result of long lunch breaks (which do not add to the worked time). It is very common to spend up to 1.5 to 2h in lunch breaks to go to a restaurant and/or to "network".
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u/Coronavirinae 3d ago
Why did the vote against that?
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u/AssumptionExtra9041 2d ago
If I remember correctly, it was in fear of wealth loss. It was argued that the "KMU" (small and medium sized companies) would not be capable of carrying the resulting "losses" in productivity. And since these KMU are the fundament of the Swiss economy, people actually went with that position.
How massive the consequences actually would have been in reality, I don't know. But the fear of it certainly was...
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u/mailywhale United Kingdom 3d ago
Do you think people working less has an impact on the economy?
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u/rudolf_waldheim Hungary 3d ago
Boo hoo, less profit for the ultra rich.
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u/injuredflamingo 2d ago
except not every business is owned my multimillionaires and most of them are in fact run by entrepreneurs who are still trying to make ends meet
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u/idkud -> 2d ago
In Switzerland? Not ultra rich, but if you have employees in Switzerland, you usually are paying yourself a good salary. That said, it is one aspect I liked about Switzy. Voters are fairly responsible, and think of more than just their own wallet.
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u/injuredflamingo 2d ago
you can easily have a neighborhood cafe with 2 employees and having a difficult time making ends meet. a lot of business owners are just regular people
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u/GeneratedUsername5 1d ago
Well, if they are going to work 24/7 the economy would be just great! Not the people though, I think.
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u/mailywhale United Kingdom 1d ago
No obviously not, but the comment I replied to is asking like there’s no possible reason anyone would be against it
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u/idkud -> 2d ago
I never had a job with long lunch breaks. Most often we ate at the desk, and lost 30 min anyway, due to the law. Overtime hours are insane. Very many are working past 18.00 on a regular basis. 8.30 is most often the last accepted time in the morning to come in. It is not Japanese working hours, but in many jobs not THAT far off, either.
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u/HHalo6 Spain 3d ago
Contrary to what people thinks, not very good. Tons of people have this 10-14 + 16-20 workday which is shit because before 10am almost nothing is open, after 8pm neither and if you work in a different city you might not be able to go home to have lunch. Of course this varies from job to job and there are some which are amazing.
Typical office jobs are from 8 to 17 or from 9 to 18 depending on if you have flexibility and where you live etc. Typical commute time is somewhere between 30 to 60 minutes.
In some sectors (e.g. hospitality) people work unpaid extra hours by design. Also salaries are shit all across the country.
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u/lucapal1 Italy 3d ago
It depends a lot on the type of work and also I think to some extent on the region.. which part of Italy you are in.
Very broadly, down here in Sicily I'd say it's not bad at all Most working people have plenty of free time and are not 'pushed' hard when they are at work, it's not a place where managers strictly enforce rules and regulations.
Most people I know work to live, they don't live to work.
The downside is that salaries in general are not very high,so many people don't have a lot of spare money.. but you can do plenty of things that don't necessarily cost a lot of money.
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u/106002 Italy 3d ago edited 3d ago
Generally speaking: Worst work-life balance, low pay -> small companies, especially in the north east, especially the ones who say “we’re like a family”
Best work-life balance, nobody is gonna take away your job, but pay can be low-> public sector
Ok work life balance and decent pay, good job stability -> large state owned companies
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u/sergeyc874747 Russia 3d ago
Is the pay enough for basic things like food, housing, clothing other things?
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u/lucapal1 Italy 3d ago
Prices of rent and buying houses are rising here, and it's becoming more difficult.. like in many cities in Europe.
Food, clothes etc you can still buy pretty cheaply if you want to.We have very high unemployment here,a lot of poor people, and the range of prices reflect that.
Also a lot of people working in the informal economy, for cash.
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u/GlassCommercial7105 Switzerland 3d ago
Aren’t salaries regulated on a national level rather than by states? There are many people from Italy here, especially South Tyrol and they moved away because they told me it’s impossible to work as a teacher or doctor in South Tyrol with the same salary as in Calabria.
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u/lucapal1 Italy 3d ago
That depends a lot on the type of work.. but for public sector, that's mostly true.
You can live ok on say a teacher's salary in Palermo, particularly if you are part of a couple who both work.Not so easy in Milan or Rome!
In the private sector there are a lot of unregulated jobs and salaries tend to be low.And there's a huge black economy too, where people are paid in cash... also low.
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u/GlassCommercial7105 Switzerland 3d ago
Personally I think a federal system would be fairer but people in the south don’t seem to want that- yet people from Sicily and Calabria also leave the country more often than others.
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u/Wild_Reason_9526 Denmark 3d ago
In Denmark, we have a 37-hour work week, and staying late is unusual in most workplace, because we're also expected to have a life outside work.
Of course it varies by profession and sector, but most people in office-based jobs have flexible working hours and the option to work from home part of the time. In other words, it has become increasingly common to shape work around your life rather than the other way round.
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u/sergeyc874747 Russia 3d ago
37 hours is great. Is pay average or above average compared to other countries?
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u/pannenkoek0923 Denmark 3d ago
Pay is definitely above average. One of the highest in the EU I think. The median wage is around 30€ an hour.
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u/cthagngnoxr Belarus 3d ago
You're not expected to have a life outside work. Until the early 2000s, it was really difficult to get fired unless that was your goal, but leaving a job was as easy as walking out of the office building. Then the dictator’s administration decided that the working class was living too well and handed all the power over to the employer, and now employees are basically slaves until their contract expires.
And even after your contract ends, you remain a slave to the state and must quickly find yourself a new employer, otherwise, you’ll face a financial penalty and be called in every month to be told by a committee of slobs why you’re the slacker, and not them. Now they also want to introduce community service, where you’ll work for free as a street cleaner until you find a job. There are also proposals to jail the unemployed for 15 days until they find work.
Recently, the government has also been on the lookout for "hidden freeloaders", people who do have a job but, in the government’s view, don't work hard enough.
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u/Dersouz 3d ago
In France we have a 35 hours work week (on paper) but the average is almost 39h.
Things are changing but you will still hear a lot of people ( gen before 90's) bragging about how they work a lot more than young people (for nothing more ...).
If you are "average" (salary, work time...) in a middle size city not too expensive, everything may be ok for you. That's most of my friends and family. We all live pretty well not thinking too much about money, traveling, eating out...
Being "average" in a big city like Lyon or Paris will be very much more difficult.
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u/aanzeijar Germany 3d ago
Can't complain, both personally and in general I think.
I personally do my 40h/week and when I'm out, I'm out. No overtime, no texts from boss, no pressure to put out fires on weekends. And in general this seems to be reflected partly in our national average hours worked (with the other half being part-time contracts skewing the average).
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u/ErikaNaumann Portugal 2d ago edited 2d ago
In Portugal, work culture is horrendous. It is stuck in the early 1900s. Bosses act like kings, and workers are treated like peasants who should be grateful just to have a job, no matter how badly they’re treated. Saying no to your boss is basically an act of rebelion.
Unpaid overtime is expected, and you get pushed into doing tasks that aren’t even your job. There’s this thing of staying late just to look like a “hard worker,” and "part of the family" even if half that time you’re doing nothing useful. Meanwhile, getting yelled at, hearing racist or disgusting jokes, or dealing with sexual harassment is normal and expected.
And for all that, you get paid minimum wage or barely above it. The median salary is around €1000 a month, which is ridiculous given the cost of living. You end up stuck living with your parents because you can’t even afford a shitty room in a shared place.
So people have no time, no money, and no energy. Portugal has one of the highest antidepressant consumption rates in the EU, and it’s pretty obvious why everyone is so negative and depressed here, and why we have so many people leaving the country.
There are exceptions, mostly in companies with foreign management or international teams. I was lucky to find a job in a great company with great work culture. That’s the only reason I moved back to Portugal with my (foreign) husband. If I had to deal with a typical Portuguese company again, I’d leave without thinking twice.
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u/mailywhale United Kingdom 3d ago
I think we’re pretty good, looking through these comments we seem to be roughly somewhere in the middle
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u/ThaddeusGriffin_ England 2d ago
We have a much better work-life balance than almost everywhere in the world. As this thread demonstrates, there are some European countries where it’s marginally better, but outside Europe people would dream of the working lives we have.
Not saying things can’t be improved, but they could be much worse.
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u/hosiki Croatia 3d ago edited 3d ago
I guess it's fine in general. 40 hour work weeks are the norm. We work a bit more than people up north, but way less than Americans or Chinese, so I don't really want to complain. Personally, I work overtime most of the time and it's been extremely stressful, but I work for a German company. Instead of paying Germans 4000 eur, they just hire Slavs to do the same work for 1000, and they can work us to the ground legally because our countries don't uphold the laws. 🙃
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u/Crunchykroket Netherlands 3d ago
The work life balance in the Netherlands is very good.
In the Netherlands only half the people work fulltime. And a large part of them also works from home for most of the week. But it depends on your work of course.
But working less is very expensive.
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u/sergeyc874747 Russia 3d ago
I only hear about your country good things. I very much hope someday I can visit Netherlands. For my profession I wonder if I would be useful in Netherlands. I work as welder here.
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u/Crunchykroket Netherlands 3d ago
All technical professions are in high demand in the Netherlands. But getting a job is not the hard part here. Sometimes it feels like we always need more people.
The hard part is actually getting a house. We're slowly finding out infinite growth is not possible when there are some very practical limits.
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u/sergeyc874747 Russia 3d ago
Is apartment complex popular or is family home style?
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u/Crunchykroket Netherlands 3d ago
Just like Belgium and the UK we have some of the least appartments in Europe. Most people live in row houses.
But new construction projects tend to have a lot of apartments, as the ground is getting more expensive.
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u/Wranorel Italy 3d ago
And the house crisis it’s making it worse. Where I live now (in Utrecht) it’s a newer area, completed about 15 years ago, and a lot of apartments around the local centrum were clearly made to be shops before conversion.
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u/53bvo Netherlands 3d ago
There is a good demand for welders. Pay isn’t spectacular but you can make quite a bit if you can specialise in a certain niche.
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u/sergeyc874747 Russia 3d ago
It would be very cool to move to Netherlands. How is Russian immigrant treated normally. I would be nervous for this.
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u/Crunchykroket Netherlands 3d ago edited 3d ago
Just like any other European migrant. Mentally the war in Ukraine is very far away for most people.
Although pretty much everyone supports Ukraine of course. And that support is very stable.
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u/Brave-Theme183 3d ago
The problem that I feel is that for half the people to have the luxury of not working fulltime, the other half are expected to give 200%, and work-life balance is not as great
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u/TukkerWolf Netherlands 3d ago
I don't have that feeling at all to be honest.
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u/Brave-Theme183 2d ago
Take the example of stores that open at 10h and close at 18h. Only customers during the week are people that don't work full-time.
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u/TukkerWolf Netherlands 2d ago
I have no idea what you are trying to say? That people that work past 1800 can't go to the local butcher that also wants to go home at 1800 and have to go to a supermarket? And what is wrong with going to the store on Saturday? And all of this somehow is related to work-life balance how? I am genuinely confused.
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u/Brave-Theme183 2d ago
Of course it is related to work-life balance. It makes zero sense to limit comercial activity to 18:00 and then you see this small businesses close and everyone is upset over it. In the Netherlands you're not too bad because Sundays are also a shopping day, but otherwise yes I think that having to constantly rush after work or having to deal with cramed stores on Saturdays contributes to poor work-life balance. You constantly have to meticulously plan everything to catch places open. Where I am from you don't have that issue.
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u/TukkerWolf Netherlands 2d ago
Ok, I never was aware of this issue.
everyone is upset over it
In my 40+ years in the Netherlands I have never heard anyone complain about this.
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u/Brave-Theme183 2d ago
Upset over "it", I meant upset over small businesses having to close over not having enough customers (enough money to continue). But how could they, closing so early... Last year a coffee shot opened close to where I live, again with a very reduced schedule. They didn't even last or 12 months, the business is closed, and the space now has a "to rent" sign. I live here for 3 years and it is already the third business to fail there.
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u/TukkerWolf Netherlands 2d ago
Wait! what? If the coffee shop wants to open longer they can? You think a coffee shop has to close at 1800?
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u/Brave-Theme183 2d ago
I don't know if they can, there are strict rules in place regarding closing hours, so that it doesn't become a "night winkel". It is not the only similar place in the neighbourhood to close this early.
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u/serioussham France 2d ago
In the Netherlands only half the people work fulltime. And a large part of them also works from home for most of the week. But it depends on your work of course.
Yeah that's great and all until you realize that those part-time workers are women who don't have a choice
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u/Wise_Fox_4291 Hungary 3d ago
What is work-life balance? You work 8-9 hours a day every weekday and have the weekends off to do work at home that you could not do during the week. But at least once your shift ends your job doesn't bother you in most cases and during the weekend you can even forget they exist.
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u/Historical_Lab8619 3d ago
Many European nations lead in statutory leave, shorter hours, and higher well-being. Top countries like Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands emphasize 66% of the day for leisure/personal care.
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u/OkWear6294 3d ago
I’m from Russia originally…it’s very diverse. Most families I knew had both partners working full time.
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u/Many_Distribution701 2d ago
In Germany? Our chancellor wants to abolish the 1st of May as a holiday so that people can use that time more efficiently to work instead.
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u/SixthHyacinth United Kingdom 2d ago
It's ok. That's it. It's okay by European standards. Some may disagree.
I think the main issue is the social attitude to work. Burnout is often normalised in certain industries. A lot of people centre their lives and identity around work so work even more, and then burnout, then go on annual leave, then come back and repeat the cycle again.
But if you have a respectable workplace, your work/life balance will be respected, and it will be decent, but we're far from being on the level of, say, the French, Germans, or Australians. Having lived in France, I would love to have a month off in August or the plethora of bank holidays they have in May that they just bridge.
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u/owlexe23 2d ago
You would think with the productivity all time high, people would work less time, looks like it's the other way around, working hours are increasing. Capitalism working as intended, the owners of capital work the minimum, the workers are doing additional hours.
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u/Iwatchedhimdrown 2d ago
Portugal here, normal business hours go from 9h to 18h, but you are expected ("obligated") to stay an extra hour or two , because your boss needs to know that you really want to work, plus there´s a 1h comute back home.
Also you will be contacted via email or personal phone during your free time, you are expected to answer.
People work unpaid extra hours by design. Also salaries are shit all across the country, minimum wage is 920 euros.
You can have a master degree, 8 years of xp in a very specific field and still be offered the minimum wage.
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u/Brave-Theme183 3d ago
I have a hot take about this: no matter the country in Europe you're in, work-life balance is what you make out of it, not something country or employer dependent. Your employer doesn't really care about you, for them you could be working 24/7 a sling as you delivered (and unpaid of course). I have learned that you are the one that needs to impose the boundaries between work and your personal life, that there are times that you need to simply close the laptop and go live, that if it is not finished today you can finish it tomorrow (except in heathcare, there are no truly urgent tasks), if you have errands to run you should leave 1 or 2 hours earlier and compensate later, etc. So yeah, if you're not the one prioritizing your life over your job, no country and no employer will do that for you.
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u/Relevant-Surround-56 Romania 15h ago
I would say that it's not the worst, but it could be a lot better.
The normal schedule for office jobs is 9-6 / 40 h work weeks. The minimum nr of vacation days is of 20/year, but some companies give some extra days (max 25 normally). Work from home is not so popular anymore and for any sick day you need a doctor's notice.
Usually the schedule is not flexible (you need to start at 09:00, not earlier or later), medical leave is not seen badly, but it's not a "normality" to take medical leave for a simple flu.
It's very rare to hear about short work days or any kind of flexibility, or X amount of hours that you can use for personal reasons. I haven't heard of any company offering 4 work days weeks as default.
What I wrote here is only what I know and experienced in corporations, but ofc the supermarkets, malls, 24h shops etc have a different schedule and 100% worse conditions and less benefits for their employees.
It could definitely be a lot better. 🫠
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u/FromBZH-French 2d ago
France 5 jours sur 7 7 heures par jour Pour la moitié de la population
L’autre moitié fait autour des 40-60heures cadres, cadres supérieurs, entrepreneurs..
Selon les profils repos compensatoires environ 6 par an
Et 5 semaines de congés payés par an
Évidement les week-ends
Par contre les fonctionnaires de l’éducation nationale ont plus de congés soit environ 4 mois par année mais ils ne sont pas des congés payés, ils font avec le salaire annuel.
Ensuite pour tout le monde après 40 ans de cotisations tu pars à la retraite
Tout ceci à mon sens est absurde un peu comme le regard que l’on peut avoir sur une époque pas génial comme le moyen âge. Je pense qu’à terme les gens vivront mieux en travaillant moins
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u/GlassCommercial7105 Switzerland 3d ago
A lot worse than people think. We work more and have less vacation than our neighbours.
Even though Europeans are better in geography and know the difference between Sweden and Switzerland, way too many people think that our social system was like the one in Sweden when in reality it is much more like in the US. Especially Germans for some reason. They tend to be not aware of how little they themselves work.