Re: Living standards across the EU compared : Tue Dec 13, 2011 10:59 pm  

I think the data Dally is looking for regarding working hours is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... king-hours, it came out last week. The UK is around in the middle of the EU countries for average working hours but this is distorted because the UK has a higher proportion of part time workers (the flip side of our flexible labour market that means we have lower unemployment than most EU countries). When you use the figures for average hours worked of full time workers, the UK is 3rd with only Austria and Greece ahead. On productivity per hour worked the UK is slightly above the EU average but below the Eurozone average, with Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Ireland the top five. It's interesting to see France much higher than us for productivity per hour worked, considering France has a larger public sector than the UK, greater employment legislation and is heavily unionised, people say that would make them less efficient but they are more productive than the largely deregulated UK.

I think the data Dally is looking for regarding working hours is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... king-hours, it came out last week. The UK is around in the middle of the EU countries for average working hours but this is distorted because the UK has a higher proportion of part time workers (the flip side of our flexible labour market that means we have lower unemployment than most EU countries). When you use the figures for average hours worked of full time workers, the UK is 3rd with only Austria and Greece ahead. On productivity per hour worked the UK is slightly above the EU average but below the Eurozone average, with Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Ireland the top five. It's interesting to see France much higher than us for productivity per hour worked, considering France has a larger public sector than the UK, greater employment legislation and is heavily unionised, people say that would make them less efficient but they are more productive than the largely deregulated UK.

Re: Living standards across the EU compared : Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:14 am  

sally cinnamon wrote: I think the data Dally is looking for regarding working hours is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... king-hours, it came out last week. The UK is around in the middle of the EU countries for average working hours but this is distorted because the UK has a higher proportion of part time workers (the flip side of our flexible labour market that means we have lower unemployment than most EU countries). When you use the figures for average hours worked of full time workers, the UK is 3rd with only Austria and Greece ahead. On productivity per hour worked the UK is slightly above the EU average but below the Eurozone average, with Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Ireland the top five. It's interesting to see France much higher than us for productivity per hour worked, considering France has a larger public sector than the UK, greater employment legislation and is heavily unionised, people say that would make them less efficient but they are more productive than the largely deregulated UK. I find it ironic that our press have been full of stories about the Greeks being lazy and workshy, hence the cause of their countries problems, yet they work more hours than the average Brit.

sally cinnamon wrote: I think the data Dally is looking for regarding working hours is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... king-hours, it came out last week. The UK is around in the middle of the EU countries for average working hours but this is distorted because the UK has a higher proportion of part time workers (the flip side of our flexible labour market that means we have lower unemployment than most EU countries). When you use the figures for average hours worked of full time workers, the UK is 3rd with only Austria and Greece ahead. On productivity per hour worked the UK is slightly above the EU average but below the Eurozone average, with Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Ireland the top five. It's interesting to see France much higher than us for productivity per hour worked, considering France has a larger public sector than the UK, greater employment legislation and is heavily unionised, people say that would make them less efficient but they are more productive than the largely deregulated UK. I find it ironic that our press have been full of stories about the Greeks being lazy and workshy, hence the cause of their countries problems, yet they work more hours than the average Brit.

Re: Living standards across the EU compared : Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:17 am  

And as I intimated, such stats can only ever be part of the picture. They don't, for instance, deal with quality of life – which I admit is not easy to measure.

Re: Living standards across the EU compared : Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:44 am  

This doesn't appear to take into account income distribution within a particular country (or at least it doesn't explicitly state that it does), and so may give a misleading figure. The UK tends to have a higher Gini Coefficient than most European countries (see here and here) which may mean that fewer people in the UK actually reach that average figure than in other countries.

This doesn't appear to take into account income distribution within a particular country (or at least it doesn't explicitly state that it does), and so may give a misleading figure. The UK tends to have a higher Gini Coefficient than most European countries (see here and here) which may mean that fewer people in the UK actually reach that average figure than in other countries.

Re: Living standards across the EU compared : Wed Dec 14, 2011 12:41 pm  

Red John wrote: This doesn't appear to take into account income distribution within a particular country (or at least it doesn't explicitly state that it does), and so may give a misleading figure. The UK tends to have a higher Gini Coefficient than most European countries (see here and here) which may mean that fewer people in the UK actually reach that average figure than in other countries. Indeed - having a high Gini coefficient often correlates with lots of other bad things e.g. death rates, poor health etc. Gini effectively measures inequality, and provides a better indication of living standards than GDP (IMO).

Red John wrote: This doesn't appear to take into account income distribution within a particular country (or at least it doesn't explicitly state that it does), and so may give a misleading figure. The UK tends to have a higher Gini Coefficient than most European countries (see here and here) which may mean that fewer people in the UK actually reach that average figure than in other countries. Indeed - having a high Gini coefficient often correlates with lots of other bad things e.g. death rates, poor health etc. Gini effectively measures inequality, and provides a better indication of living standards than GDP (IMO).

Re: Living standards across the EU compared : Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:55 pm  

Yes and actually David Cameron is an advocate of the "happiness index" type figures to say there is more to life than measuring GDP (obviously because he knows we won't have much GDP growth while he's PM). The UN has a Human Development Index which covers a number of areas, life expectancy, years of schooling, poverty rate, inequality levels, gender inequality, per capita income etc. It is more revealing when looking at developing countries and seeing which ones are gaining ground on others in terms of escaping poverty. Their rankings are here: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/ The UK is 28th. Top 10 are Norway, Australia, Netherlands, USA, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Sweden. India, which is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and has high levels of wealth at the top end, comes 134th, behind Iraq (132). China is 101. Israel is surprisingly high on that list at 17, ahead of France (20). The OECD also has a "Better Life Index" http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ and on their website you can change the weightings of each category to create a table based on what you think is important. Their index covers things like life satisfaction, access to jobs, access to housing, environment, work-life balance etc. On the 2009 figures with all their categories equally weighted there is a general correlation with GDP per capita:

Yes and actually David Cameron is an advocate of the "happiness index" type figures to say there is more to life than measuring GDP (obviously because he knows we won't have much GDP growth while he's PM). The UN has a Human Development Index which covers a number of areas, life expectancy, years of schooling, poverty rate, inequality levels, gender inequality, per capita income etc. It is more revealing when looking at developing countries and seeing which ones are gaining ground on others in terms of escaping poverty. Their rankings are here: http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/ The UK is 28th. Top 10 are Norway, Australia, Netherlands, USA, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Sweden. India, which is one of the fastest growing economies in the world and has high levels of wealth at the top end, comes 134th, behind Iraq (132). China is 101. Israel is surprisingly high on that list at 17, ahead of France (20). The OECD also has a "Better Life Index" http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ and on their website you can change the weightings of each category to create a table based on what you think is important. Their index covers things like life satisfaction, access to jobs, access to housing, environment, work-life balance etc. On the 2009 figures with all their categories equally weighted there is a general correlation with GDP per capita:

Re: Living standards across the EU compared : Wed Dec 14, 2011 4:51 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Does living standards here include such things as work-life balance, maternity/paternity rights?

They don't do too bad, you get better treatment for the results of a sexual encounter OUTSIDE of work than you do if you have time off for injury at work.