They boost household income and satisfy worka holics, but they can have adverse effects on health and family life. According to a 1995 NOP survey, about 45 per cent want to work a shorter week; only 25 per cent want to work more than 40 hours, compared with 70 per cent actually doing so. The Government’s policy is to increase the employment rate, even though it is already relatively high. A higher employment rate tends to go with lower unemployment. Looking across countries, an employment rate one per cent higher is apt to mean an unempl oyment rate two-thirds of a per cent lower.

Higher employment is beneficial to welfare, as long as it is not compulsory. We input 20 per cent more labour than the average EU country. The relatively high number of part-time workers is more than made up for by the longer full-time working week. Britain achieves its high labour input partly by having 44 per cent of the population (71 per cent of 15-64s) in employment. Its employment rate comes below those of only Denmark and Sweden in the EU. Britain also has the longest average working hours pe r employee after Spain and Finland – 1735 hours a year. Japan’s productivity is less than that of the UK , and the US’s less than the EU average.

Their higher GDP per head is due to longer working hours, so it has a welfare cost. Countries vary even more in working hours, employment rates and productivity levels than they do in living standards. The graph shows different countries’ combinations of effort in thousands of hours worked and efficiency in GDP per hour in dollars at pu rchasing power parities. The UK’s labour input is 764 hours a year per head of population, second only to Denmark’s in the EU.