My German roomie would get a kick out of Sweden and Germany being side by side. Anecdotal of course but I don’t think he’d agree.

For starters, he hasn’t been almost killed at his job here in Sweden, even though truck driver is probably a more dangerous job than his old office job. No flying saw blades here.

Sure, LGBTQ+ inclusivity is good. But is it at all related to work-life balance?

Having looked at this, they have a few things that aren't quite right. But that's not surprising given how tough it is to compare countries that define things differently.

I've only lived recently in Germany and the UK, so I can speak for those, but for example the "maternity" comparison is very skewed because of the (admittedly confusing) way that Germany defines "paid time with your child after they are born". There are basically two phases to it, with different names and conditions. The first is the 14 weeks of 100% pay which is listed on the website, but afterwards there is what's called Elternzeit ("parents time") which is partially paid (starts at 65% if I remember right) and is at least 14 months, but can be extended with slightly different conditions.

So the vast majority of the benefit is not being included in this comparison.

Yeah, we moved from Germany to the UK a year or so ago and are about to move back pretty much specifically because of this.

Maybe it's just London, but here there is a really prevalent "hustle culture" and everyone is doing things like joining work calls during their holidays or not having a lunch break and then working 9 hours anyways.

Not to mention you get less holidays and things like being sick or maternity leave are terrible headaches in comparison.

So all in all, for us at least its been a shock! Ib would be interested to know what metrics they are using for work-life balance, because it likely doesn't match what I would choose.

It's weird tho, because Austria is ranked way lower, but in my experience it ain't that bad

but did you work in any of the bottom range countries? to compare

Bc Switzerland is worse than Romania

Akshually, it's a giraffe with a leather jacket and a mohawk.

Yeah! The designer got an award for the shape, especially for the fjords.

Yeah me too. Makes me question their metric. Maybe something like Sweden not having an official minimum wage, even though that is regulated through other means (very strong unions).

If you're not working the balance is pretty good /s kind of

I have no idea how they measure their work-life balance index, but IIRC Spain still has a limited degree of the siesta showing up in places. Like, my understanding is that your random office in Madrid wouldn't do it, but in a town back in the backcountry may have businesses that do so.

googles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta

In modern Spain, the midday nap during the working week has largely been abandoned among the adult working population.[16] According to a 2009 survey, 16.2 percent of Spaniards polled claimed to take a nap "daily", whereas 22 percent did so "sometimes", 3.2 percent "weekends only" and the remainder, 58.6 percent, "never". The share of those who claimed to have a nap daily had diminished by 7 percent compared to a previous poll in 1998. Nearly three out of four siesta-takers claimed to take siestas on the sofa rather than the bed.

English-language media often conflates the siesta with the two to three hour lunch break that is characteristic of Spanish working hours,[18] even though the working population is less likely to have time for a siesta and the two events are not necessarily connected. In fact, the average Spaniard works longer hours than almost all their European counterparts (typically 11-hour days, from 9 am to 8 pm).

Huh.

I think some countries are missing here.

I'd guess that they're using Eurostat data, but the UK is present, and they stopped participating in Eurostat when they left the EU. So either it's not that, or it's old data.

A bit off-topic, but I kind of wish that the UK and some of the other countries in Europe could participate in some level of voluntary, best-effort participating to share data. Like, okay, if you're not in the EU, you aren't bound to use the same statistical standards that EU members are, but I am pretty sure that some countries do or don't care, and it's kind of obnoxious that it makes it harder to compare datasets spanning all of Europe.