New Delhi:

After Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal backed Infosys founder Narayana Murthy’s 70-hour work-week advice, a top neurologist today warned that it could increase the risk of several serious diseases and even premature death.

Narayan Murthy had, in 2023, said that if India wants to compete with developed economies that have made remarkable progress in recent decades, youngsters should work for 70 hours a week.

In a recent podcast, Bhavish reignited the debate on the 70-hour work week, saying that he is “fully in sync” with his advice.

“Working long hours is associated with increased risk of multiple serious diseases and even premature death,” said Sudhir Kumar, from Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, in a post on social media platform X.com.

Citing several scientific studies the doctor said that “working 55 or more hours per week is associated with a 35 per cent higher risk of a stroke and a 17 per cent higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, compared to working 35-40 hours a week”.

Further, working for more than 55 hours a week kills more than 8,00,000 people every year, he said.

Long working hours also raise the risk of being overweight, prediabetes, and Type 2 diabetes – a precursor to many diseases and early death.

“People working 69 or more hours a week are more likely to have moderate to severe depressive symptoms than those working 40 hours a week,” he said.

“CEOs are inclined to recommend long working hours for their employees to improve their company’s profits and their own net worth,” the neurologist said.

He added that in the case “where employees fall sick, they can be easily substituted”.

“It is in your best interest to choose an organisation that cares for employees and recommends reasonable working hours- to ensure a better work-life balance,” he said.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy
| Photo Credit: DEEPAK KR

Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy recently said that young Indians must work for 70 hours a week. The comment has been met with support from some and criticism from others. The comments were made in the first episode of a video series published by 3one4 Capital titled ‘The Record’.

Assuming a six-day work week, Mr. Murthy’s comment means that Indians would have to work 11.5 hours of work a day. How many hours does an average young Indian work at present? According to the Time Use Survey conducted in India in 2019, a person aged 15-29 spends over 7.2 hours a day in employment and related activities in rural areas and 8.5 hours a day in urban areas. A State-wise comparison of the time spent on work in urban areas, given that this figure is higher than in rural areas, is presented in Map 1. Urban Uttarakhand ranks first, with young people from the State working for an average of 9.6 hours a day, which is about two hours less than what Mr. Murthy envisions.

Map 1 | The map shows the average number of hours an urban Indian aged 15-29 spends in a day on employment and related activities

Charts appear incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode

Assuming that if people work for five days, they would have to work for 14 hours a day, a point to ponder is whether working more hours translates to better productivity. Mr. Murthy raises this point in the video series. “India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity… we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress,” he said.

He pointed to the examples of Germany and Japan to drive home this point. “You know this is exactly what the Germans and Japanese did after the Second World War… they made sure that every German worked extra hours for a certain number of years,” he said.

A comparison of annual working hours per worker and labour productivity in India, Germany and Japan is presented in Chart 2. The chart shows that the average annual working hours of Germans and the Japanese peaked after the war at about 2,200 hours to 2,400 hours a year — about 8.3 to 9 hours  a day during a five-day work week without holidays. This is still 2.5 hours less than what Mr. Murthy’s envisions.

Chart 2 | The chart shows the annual working hours per worker and productivity (GDP/hour worked) in $/hour.

More importantly, as labour productivity increased in Germany and Japan, two countries that were relatively more industrialised even before the Second World War, the average working hours reduced drastically to about 1,400-1,600 hours a year by 2020 (5.3 to 6 hours a day), as shown in Chart 2. Labour productivity is measured as GDP per hour of work. India’s average annual working hours stayed above 2,000 from 1970 to 2020, while the labour productivity increased marginally from $2 per hour to $9 in the same period. So, the question is, is it better to increase working hours or to increase productivity through technology?

This is because longer work hours translates into less time for sports and leisure. As shown in Chart 3, when compared to Germany and Japan, Indians spend less time on sports and other leisure activities. Indians spend more time sleeping and doing housework than the other two nations.

Chart 3 | The chart shows the average number of hours spent on various activities per day.

While opinions are divided over Mr. Murthy’s suggestion, it is imperative to ask whether India has enough statistical tools at its disposal to accurately measure labour productivity given that 89% of the workforce is engaged in informal employment compared to just 4.2% in Germany and about 8% in Japan (Chart 4). With such a drastic difference in the nature of the labour force among the three nations, do they make for a viable comparison?

Chart 4 | The chart shows the share of informal employment in the total workforce for the latest year with data (in %)

With inputs from Rebecca Rose Varghese

nihalani.j@thehindu.co.in and vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in

Source: Time Use Survey 2019, Our World In Data, International Labour Organization

Also read | Mental health and the floundering informal worker

Listen to our podcast | How Turkey’s economic and political trajectory compares to India | Data Point podcast

Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy
| Photo Credit: Deepak KR

Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy recently said that young Indians must work for 70 hours a week. The comment has been met with support from some and criticism from others. The comments were made in the first episode of a video series published by 3one4 Capital titled ‘The Record’.

Also read | Why Narayana Murthy is wrong about the 70-hour work week 

Assuming a six-day work week, Mr. Murthy’s comment means that Indians would have to work 11.5 hours a day. How many hours does an average young Indian work at present? According to the Time Use Survey conducted in India in 2019, a person aged 15-29 spends over 7.2 hours a day in employment and related activities in rural areas and 8.5 hours a day in urban areas. A State-wise comparison of the time spent on work in urban areas, given that this figure is higher than in rural areas, is presented in Map 1. Urban Uttarakhand ranks first, with young people from the State working for an average of 9.6 hours a day, which is about two hours less than what Mr. Murthy envisions.

Map 1 | The map shows the average number of hours an urban Indian aged 15-29 spends in a day on employment and related activities

Charts appear incomplete? Click to remove AMP mode

Assuming that if people work for five days, they would have to work for 14 hours a day, a point to ponder is whether working more hours translates to better productivity. Mr. Murthy raises this point in the video series. “India’s work productivity is one of the lowest in the world. Unless we improve our work productivity… we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress,” he said.

He pointed to the examples of Germany and Japan to drive home this point. “You know this is exactly what the Germans and Japanese did after the Second World War… they made sure that every German worked extra hours for a certain number of years,” he said.

A comparison of annual working hours per worker and labour productivity in India, Germany and Japan is presented in Chart 2. The chart shows that the average annual working hours of Germans and the Japanese peaked after the war at about 2,200 hours to 2,400 hours a year — about 8.3 to 9 hours  a day during a five-day work week without holidays. This is still 2.5 hours less than what Mr. Murthy’s envisions.

Chart 2 | The chart shows the annual working hours per worker and productivity (GDP/hour worked) in $/hour.

More importantly, as labour productivity increased in Germany and Japan, two countries that were relatively more industrialised even before the Second World War, the average working hours reduced drastically to about 1,400-1,600 hours a year by 2020 (5.3 to 6 hours a day), as shown in Chart 2. Labour productivity is measured as GDP per hour of work. India’s average annual working hours stayed above 2,000 from 1970 to 2020, while the labour productivity increased marginally from $2 per hour to $9 in the same period. So, the question is, is it better to increase working hours or to increase productivity through technology?

This is because longer work hours translates into less time for sports and leisure. As shown in Chart 3, when compared to Germany and Japan, Indians spend less time on sports and other leisure activities. Indians spend more time sleeping and doing housework than the other two nations.

Chart 3 | The chart shows the average number of minutes spent on various activities per day.

While opinions are divided over Mr. Murthy’s suggestion, it is imperative to ask whether India has enough statistical tools at its disposal to accurately measure labour productivity given that 89% of the workforce is engaged in informal employment compared to just 4.2% in Germany and about 8% in Japan (Chart 4). With such a drastic difference in the nature of the labour force among the three nations, do they make for a viable comparison?

Chart 4 | The chart shows the share of informal employment in the total workforce for the latest year with data (in %)

With inputs from Rebecca Rose Varghese

nihalani.j@thehindu.co.in and vignesh.r@thehindu.co.in

Source: Time Use Survey 2019, Our World In Data, International Labour Organization

Also read | Mental health and the floundering informal worker

Listen to our podcast | How Turkey’s economic and political trajectory compares to India | Data Point podcast

Infosys founder Narayana Murthy recently suggested that India’s youth must work for 70 hours every week to boost the country’s overall work productivity and economy. This remark by the businessman created a stir online with a few people including JSW Chairman Sajjan Jindal supporting the idea while others also questioned the long-term health implications of having a work schedule consisting of unreasonable and extremely long working hours. Now, Edelweiss CEO and Managing Director Radhika Gupta weighed in on the matter and said that although Indian women have been working much more than 70 hours per week for decades, however, nobody has paid attention to that.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Ms Gupta said, “Between offices and homes, many Indian women have been working many more than seventy hour weeks to build India (through our work) and the next generation of Indians (our children). For years and decades. With a smile, and without a demand for overtime. Funnily, no one has debated about us on Twitter.”

Between offices and homes, many Indian women have been working many more than seventy hour weeks to build India (through our work) and the next generation of Indians (our children). For years and decades. With a smile, and without a demand for overtime.

Funnily, no one has…

— Radhika Gupta (@iRadhikaGupta) October 29, 2023

Since being shared, her post has amassed over 74,000 views. Many users reacted to her post. 

“Indian women’s tireless dedication deserves recognition,” said a user.

A second person added, “Very true. But imagine you work 70 hrs a week with all these other in house work for women. Women don’t get weekends off from house work,so there is no downtime or self care for them.”

“Even without office, women in India have been working over 72 hours a week to feed the family. In our home, preparation for the lunch will start before the last member finished the breakfast and so on. Mother was the first person to get up in the morning and last one to go to bed,” said a person.

“Well pointed,” said another person.

Another added, “Actually my husband also did a lot to bring up our son, I wasn’t the only one at home doing extra hours. Also work life in Mumbai tends to be long hours; We all have to travel long hours to work and back.”

Also Read: Edelweiss CEO Radhika Gupta Calls Mumbai Commute “Draining”, Urges For Better Infrastructure

“Until the spectre of patriarchy is obliterated, nothing will change. Even in the west, Indian women with full time jobs, are slaving at home, while the men party. I have friends like that. Until girls are treated as equal to boys from birth, nothing will change, ever,” commented a person.

Mr Murty commented about the work culture while speaking to former Infosys CEO Mohandas Pai on the first episode of 3one4 Capital’s podcast ‘The Record’. Mr Narayana Murthy drew parallels to Japan and Germany, countries that implemented the extended working hours. He also talked about other topics like nation-building, technology, his company Infosys and others.