Gwarosa - "death from overwork"

Peter Bentley executive director of the McKell Institute

Gwarosa can be translated as "death from overwork". It's an officially recognised phenomenon in Korea where, in recent decades, people have been suffering from overwork-induced heart attacks, strokes and mental illness.

The condition is not figurative. Medical research shows that overwork leads to a sustained build-up of the stress hormone cortisol, which increases the likelihood of cardiac disease, sleep problems and depression. Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Yet in Australia we are being constantly pushed to work longer. Across the nation, business lobby groups are hustling for longer working hours, less overtime, and more weekend work.

The Restaurant & Catering Association, for example, has a submission before the Fair Work Commission arguing for an end to existing weekend penalty rates.

Measures designed to engineer longer hours are often promoted as a means of improving labour productivity. But this misunderstands the fact that labour productivity is output per hour, not total output per worker.

But is it still reasonable to assume that the Australian economy would benefit if we all worked longer?

Koreans still put in long hours today, but back in 2000 they were working longer than the rest of the OECD, with the average worker pulling 51 hours per week. The average Australian at the time was working 37 hours per week. Yet Korean labour productivity levels were abysmal. An hour of work was adding an average of $US17 per hour to the GDP, compared to $49 per hour in the US, $33 in Japan and $41 in Australia.

So the Korean government decided to reduce the working week from 44 to 40 hours and the average weekly hours have fallen from 51 to 44.

The change in productivity has been spectacular. In real terms, Korea is up 56 per cent since 2000. By comparison Australia rose 13 per cent. All of this proves that those pushing for longer, tougher working hours are failing us not just socially, but economically as well.

It is vital that we shatter these myths because surveys show Australians want to work less. More than half of working people would prefer an extra two weeks annual leave over a rise in pay. It's a lesson we should know by now.