Do The French Work Too Little? No. Not for Others

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Alice Cappelle Has a Point · New blog on the kid: I Think a Solution is Possible · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Dialogue Under Alice Cappelle's Video · back to New blog on the kid: Do The French Work Too Little? No. Not for Others · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Welsh Viking on Medieval Peasants — He's Occasionally Inaccurate or Off

Going back to my stats from the other post - they are from 2017, remember.

2.16 m. 15 to 24 have an employment
16.545 m. 25 to 49 have an employment
7.806 m. 50 to 64 have an employment
0.368 m. 65 or older have an employment

2.16 m. + 16.545 m. + 7.806 m. + 0.368 m. = 26.879 m.

26.879 m. / 66.92 m. = 40.2 %

The ministry of work gives statistics (DARES) for those employed as, both salaried and non-salaried, both full time and part time, they work a medium of 1567 hours a year.

1567 * 40.2 % = 629 hours per year.

The economist I heard yesterday morning (actually more read subtitles and saw they matched his figures on a black board - it was a news show in a bar, sound off) said 631 hours per year. Sounds pretty correct.

I think the figures were fairly fresh, but as the quora answer didn't link to any given document, I don't know what year they refer to. However, I can cite how it breaks down.

full time

with a salary 1638

otherwise 2193

any type of work 1708

part time

with a salary 938

otherwise 843

any type of work 926

any time (full/part)

with a salary 1513

otherwise 1940

any type of work 1567

So, an economist got 631 hours per year, and I got 1567 hours for the medium person at gainful work * 40.2 % at work earning = 629 hours per year over the entire population.

The economist stated that we here in France couldn't afford it, so had to work more = have more people at work. Why so? The medium time at work in OECD countries is 800 and in the US 825 hours per year, over the population.

Now, part of the issue is how work hours are counted.

France's famous Myth : the 35-hour French Work Week
https://snippetsofparis.com/french-work-week/

A typical work week for an office worker is 10 hours per day at or near office, whereof 1 h 30 min at lunch, and two more breaks of 15 minutes called coffee breaks. This leaves you with 40 hours - whereof 5 hours count as overtime and is compensated at vacations. - I resume, since copy-paste doesn't function.

BBC : Cast your jealousy aside. The idea the French and Spanish work fewer hours than the rest of us is more fiction than fact.
By Richard Venturi 13th March 2014
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20140312-frances-mythic-35-hour-week

Contrary to many stereotypes, 35-hours is “simply a threshold above which overtime or rest days start to kick in”, according to French economist Jean-Marie Perbost.

Blue-collar workers are expected to work precisely 35 hours, but the hours white-collar workers (cadres in French) amass each week are not clocked. Like professionals in, say, the United States, most cadres work until the tasks at hand are done. But unlike in the US, French professionals are compensated for the hours they work beyond 35 with rest days, which are negotiated on a company-by-company basis (there were nine rest days, on average, given by companies in 2013).

Even blue-collar workers work more than 35 hours. According to French government statistics, 50% of full-time workers put in paid overtime in 2010. That percentage was likely to be higher in 2013, said Perbost. Of course, compared to the hours certain professions tally on a weekly basis, the average worker in Europe doesn’t have it so bad. Take lawyers. According to France’s national bar association (CNB), 44% of lawyers in the country logged more than 55 hours on a weekly basis in 2008. In the United States, surveys show that many attorneys work about 55 to 60 hours per week in order to meet the billable hours requirements most firms maintain.

So, no, it's not that France spends too little time at work. It's how much of the production is spent on old people's pensions. "Taxing the rich" (more than already done) is only solving the problem for so many more years.

Let's break down the people who don't "contribute" as they would have you say:

"The total above 15 years is 53 212 000" - meaning back when the population was 66.92 millions in 2017. 66.92 - 53.212 = 13.708 million 0 to 14. Presumably all inactive.

13.708 m. + 4.757 m. + 2.523 m. + 4.38 m. + 11.885 m. inactive = 37.253 m.
.62 m. + 1.593 m. + 0.564 m. + 0.012 m. looking for work = 2.789 m.

37.253 m. + 2.789 m. = 40.042 m.

Both those inactive and those looking for work have to be supported by those working. Either within the same household, or via "pension payment to a relative" or via the systems that tax some to give payments to others, and that involve paying people for the paper work this involves.

However, people under 15 don't pay separate bills for apartments, usually. Up to adolescence, they eat less. The old are more than one quarter of the number and of the expense. The young are more than that of the number, but less than that of the expense. The good news is, those below 15 (part of whom would now be 15 to 19) are in fact more numerous again than those in the age middle:

13.708 m. / 15 = 913 867

But the less good news is, a lot of these are from families that have their own old to support outside the French pension system. It's not a crime for them to eventually prefer their private arrangements over the French system. It's just sense to them. The French need to make more babies. And that means more maternity leave, not less. Fewer women at work, not more. And THAT means, the men have to be paid better.

As said, the idea of single men working full time being paid for the living standard of the employees of the company what it costs a single man - but if he's married and his wife is home with a child, say under 3, he gets paid what a man, his wife, his child under three need for that living standard. And if he supports his own parents or his wife's, he is paid what two old men, a man, his wife and a child under three need for that living standard.

I will now try to extrapolate how many work for wages.

(x * 1513 h + y * 1940 h) / (x + y) = 1567 h
x : y = 2 : 1?
(1513 + 1513 + 1940) / 3 = 1655
x : y = 4 : 1?
(1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1940) / 5 = 1598
x : y = 8 : 1?
(1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1513 + 1940) / 9 = 1560 - fairly close.

So, the work done for paymasters is a little less than 8/9 of the total work hours. And that means, 629 * 8/9 = 559 hours per year and total number of inhabitants is spent on working for a paymaster. That being the most common way of getting money for one's work.

In the French Middle Ages, a peasant was often enough required to work 1 day a week on the farmer's field. Given the number of holy days of obligation that added to the Sundays, there was practically a five day week.

A work day was typically 12 hours including pauses, which would often be longer than the modern lunch pause and two coffee breaks.

52 * 12 = 624 hours spent on working for someone else.

Later, the work days were reduced to three days in four weeks and even 1 day a month.

12 * 12 = 144 hours per year.

Note, this is not the total of work hours, overall, it's the total corresponding to 559 hours rather than to the part spent working for oneself.

How much would the peasant have been working in total, including pruning his own orchard and picking his own berries (not modern strawberries)? Well, 60 hours (including lunch breaks and other pauses) per week at a medium week of five days a week.

60 * 52 = 3120 hours.

But he would normally have a wife, the parents of one of the couple, more than one child, say three, so divide that by 7 ... 3120 / 7 = 446 hours overall = less than the present 629 hours per year.

And the time spent in corvée should also be divided by seven to get the corresponding figure: 624 / 7 = 89 hours; 144 / 7 = 21 hours. Business owners are taking more work from the French workers than lords used to take from peasants. The economist is wrong. Attali, who wants euthanasia, is also wrong. The solution is making more babies.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Timon, Deacon and Martyr
19.IV.2023

Corinthi natalis sancti Timonis, qui fuit unus de septem primis Diaconis. Hic primo apud Beroeam Doctor resedit, ac deinde, verbum Domini disseminans, venit Corinthum; ibique, a Judaeis et Graecis (ut traditur) injectus flammis, sed nihil laesus, demum, cruci affixus, martyrium suum implevit.

Another quoran cites the report that only Turkey has fewer hours:

L'OCDE RÉVÈLE QUE LES FRANÇAIS TRAVAILLENT 631 HEURES PAR AN, SEULE LA TURQUIE FAIT MOINS
AL avec Emmanuel Lechypre, Le 17/04/2023 à 11:47
https://rmc.bfmtv.com/actualites/economie/l-ocde-revele-que-les-francais-travaillent-631-heures-par-an-seule-la-turquie-fait-moins_AV-202304170328.html

This is obviously not the problem, since Turkey's pension system is, unlike most occidental ones, not going bankrupt and in need of "reforms" that are painful to citizens./HGL

PPS, the first quoran gave this answer, it's the closest to a source I can provide right now:


Gilles Karpman a répondu à : Un économiste disait aux actu que les Français travaillaient en moyenne 631 heures annuelles - comment compte-t-on ça?
https://fr.quora.com/Un-%C3%A9conomiste-disait-aux-actu-que-les-Fran%C3%A7ais-travaillaient-en-moyenne-631-heures-annuelles-comment-compte-t-on-%C3%A7a/answer/Gilles-Karpman

PPPS, two posts of mine in French:

En français sur Antimodernism : Trop bossent trop
https://avantlafermeturedantimodernism.blogspot.com/2008/10/trop-bossent-trop.html

En français sur Antimodernism : Une situation
https://avantlafermeturedantimodernism.blogspot.com/2008/10/une-situation.html

It's a while ago, I don't think my assessment back then is falsified since./HGL