• Worktime has declined since the end of the Industrial Revolution, and this combined with increasing lifespans has resulted in large increases in the amount of total leisure the average individual can expect to enjoy over their lifetime. In recent decades, however, declines in worktime for employed individuals have slowed or stopped in the US even as work hours in many other high-income countries have declined. The average American worker went from working a few hundred hours less than the average French or German worker to a few hundred hours more in the span of a few decades.

• The working time gap between the US and Europe is explained by both a higher number of vacation weeks in Europe and a longer workweek in the US The US is the only OECD country with no statutory minimum level of annual leave, and the vacation time offered by many US employers falls below the minimum level of leave offered in many other countries. Many Scandinavian and Western European countries have obtained shorter standard workweeks through legislation or collective bargaining.