Why Indians glorify overwork, even when people die

No one likes a bad death. A messy one, with questions hanging at the end and interrupting the status quo that keeps the gilded corners of our world gleaming. And Anna Sebastian Perayil’s death was the worst of all.She was 26, a freshly-qualified chartered accountant, clearly an overachiever, and had secured her first job at Ernst & Young (EY), one of the Big Four — an informal collective term for the world’s largest accounting and professional services firms. Four months into her job, she died of a cardiac arrest. Her mother wrote a letter to the chairperson of EY India about the work culture which she was certain caused her daughter’s death, the letter was widely circulated on social media, the chairperson told The Indian Express that he “didn’t believe that work pressure could have claimed her life”, the labour ministry said it was initiating an investigation into the circumstances of her death, public outrage over her death kept growing on social media, and the chairperson issued a statement saying that he “will not rest” until the company becomes a harmonious workplace.Somewhere at the core of the outrage over Anna’s death, perhaps, lies an outrage over another thing — the seeming deception of the work-hard-do-well adage that has been passed on diligently for generations in India. Her mother’s letter said Anna was a school topper, a college topper, great at extracurriculars, and passed her chartered accountancy exam with distinction. She “worked tirelessly” and “did not know how to say no”. Everything we are constantly told is the irrefutable path to the best things in life. Is it not enough then? Is anything?Indians are among the world’s most hard-working. And that’s terribleTowards the end of last year, a report by McKinsey said that in a survey across 30 countries, respondents in India reported the highest rates of burnout symptoms — almost 60%. Another survey by McKinsey, a year before that, had also found India reported the highest rates of burnout. A 2019 report found that Mumbai was the world’s hardest-working city (Delhi was fourth on that list, behind only Hanoi and Mexico City). And a 2018 survey had found that Indians felt the most vacation-deprived in the world.Not much seems to have changed since the 2000s when a series of workplace pressure-related suicides by young workers in India’s then-rising tech sector led to some conversations about work cultures and their impact on health. And then everyone moved on.But can we afford to move on? And who pays the price for moving on?In 2021, when the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) published a study on the impact of working long hours, it turned out that working 55 hours a week or more was linked to a much higher risk of early death than working 35-40 hours a week.And which country was letting the most people die because of health complications that came out of working long hours? India. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r The WHO and the ILO had calculated how exposure to occupational risks was related to health outcomes across the world. The biggest risk, they found, was long working hours. More than deaths because of exposure to particulates and fumes or even straight-up injuries. And attributable to long working hours were two causes of death, ischaemic heart disease and stroke. The numbers for India were the worst for any single country. And this is not just about the size of the population — India’s numbers have been worse than those for China. The more alarming part of this story is that there does not seem to be any sign of numbers going down. Between 2000 and 2016:Deaths in India attributable to long working hours went up 47%, against the global average of 29%.India’s share in global deaths attributable to long working hours also increased from an already astoundingly high 24% to 27%. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r It is bound to happen. International labour standards set a limit on normal working hours at 8 a day and 48 a week (with some exceptions but not allowing a three-week average to cross these limits). ILO’s data on working time shows that in India, more than half the employed people (51.4%) work for 49 hours or more in a week — the world’s second highest share after, surprisingly, Bhutan (61.3%).In fact, on ILO’s list of 170 countries, India’s number of average working hours per week, at 46.7, is the 13th highest — trailing countries which are low income or lower-middle income like Congo and Bangladesh, with only two high-income exceptions of the UAE and Qatar.Closer to India’s high-pressure work system is China, home of the toxic ‘996’ work culture, where people put in an average of 46 hours a week into their work. China’s ‘996’ work culture refers to a routine of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week, which was glorified by Chinese tech tycoon Jack Ma. And like in India, high-profile deaths linked to overwork did start discussions and create some public pressure since 2020. Chinese authorities stepped in quickly to remind companies that it would actually be illegal — regular work hours are capped at 44 a week.But it is still said to be common. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Is everyone at the same risk? In India, the information and communication sector — which includes computer programming, consultancy and related work; information services activities like data processing and hosting, media; and telecommunications — is the most stretched out. Its workers put in 57.5 hours a week, ILO data shows, almost nine hours more than the international labour mandate.Other sectors are not doing too great either. In fact, of 20 work sectors under the International Standard Classification of Occupations, workers in 16 are working 50 hours a week or more. So, even something like the professional, scientific and technical activities category — which includes management consultancy services, advertising and market research, legal and accounting work, architecture and engineering, scientific research, and technical activities — ends up demanding 55 hours a week of its workers in India.The only sectors coming anywhere close to the 48-hour work week are (for reasons entirely different than work-life balance) intensive labour-heavy sectors like farming and construction.One of the things Anna’s mother wrote in her letter that might resonate more strongly with younger workers was about the pressure that comes with simply being young and new at a workplace: “Like many in her position, she did not have the experience or the agency to draw boundaries or push back against unreasonable demands. She did not know how to say no.”Everyone working in an office has been there at some point.ILO data on working time shows that younger workers do put in more hours than their senior colleagues. Up to their early 20s, Indians are working almost 58 hours a week and barely slowing down to 57 hours by their mid-30s. The only significant drop seems to come after workers cross their mid-50s, when they work 53 hours. (And even then, they are working far longer than the 48-hour international labour mandate.) !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Overall, those at the managerial level put in about five more hours a week than those responsible for executing work (57 vs 52). In the professional, scientific and technical activities sector — which includes management consultancy — the gap is narrower, at just under two hours a week (57 for managers and about 55 for those below them in the work hierarchy). But in the information and communication sector — which includes IT services — the pattern is reversed. Managers work over an hour less every week than those just below them in the work hierarchy in 2023. This pattern, in which managers work fewer hours than those reporting to them, is also found in public administration (with a gap of almost four hours every week) and general administrative sectors besides the more conventionally expected sectors like real estate or manufacturing.But in absolute terms, there is no real advantage to being a manager either. In nearly all sectors, those in managerial roles also put in 55 hours a week or more — that dangerous level which WHO and ILO found is linked to early death. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r How much do these long hours contribute to our GDP?$8. That is how much every hour of work in India contributes to the GDP. Working long hours can make money only when people can be productive. Besides — well — killing people, long working hours also lead to reduced productivity. Enough research has shown that consistently, and even having to state that seems redundant.But since these things often come down to money, and not actual concerns about people dying or getting dangerously unhealthy, we should ask if this route is sustainable even from a profit-making perspective. India’s less-than-$8 labour productivity is only better than small, low income and lower-middle income economies. India, too, is a lower-middle income economy but for an economy of this size, $8 an hour is quite low. Outsourcing competitor Vietnam makes $9.8 an hour, Philippines $10.5 an hour, Indonesia $13.5 an hour. The other overwork hub, China, makes $15.4, nowhere close to the productivity of high income economies that it aims for. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r Remember how most of the countries that work for a lot longer are usually low income or lower-middle income? Part of the productivity of high income countries also has to do with the fact that they don’t overwork. The capitalist dreamworld, the US? Fewer than 38 hours a week. The world’s finance capital, the UK? Fewer than 36 hours. The world’s engineering capital, Germany? Just over 34 hours.What was once the world’s overwork capital, Japan? Fewer than 37 hours.Of course, all of this is enabled by countries like India to which the grunt work of multinational corporations headquartered in high-income economies is sent off. Water-tight labour laws with hard boundaries between work and life apply to the headquarters in high income economies, and not always to the cost centres in lower-middle income or low income economies. That might explain why the most obvious cases of death by overwork in India have been reported in sectors that involve global economic exchange — the IT sector in the 2000s or the consultancy sector now. Within the generally low-paying formal sector in India, IT and consultancy firms usually stand out with their better salary offerings and the promise of growth. Professional services is India’s top-paying industry at the senior level, with an average cost to company of Rs 39 lakh a year, followed by internet and e-commerce (Rs 38 lakh), and IT-enabled services (Rs 33 lakh). But in the global job market, these are inexpensive positions. When Big Tech layoffs peaked in the US and other developed economies, some 30-40% of those 3 lakh lost jobs were expected to come India’s way by 2024-25. Hiring by the Big Four had already risen 20% that year. Randstad India had told The Economic Times at the time: “While companies are facing a slowdown in North America and the Europe-UK markets, they are keen on improving their profitability through more work addressed out of India centres.” That profitability is tied to scale. Which often means more work in less time. Or, as Indian outsourcing guru NR Narayana Murthy (in)famously said, “Unless we improve our work productivity … we will not be able to compete with those countries that have made tremendous progress … So, therefore, my request is that our youngsters must say, ‘This is my country. I’d like to work 70 hours a week.’”Sure. But while averages end up erasing extremes, like Anna’s case, at least anecdotally it does seem like many Indians are putting in even more than 70 hours a week (just head to a subreddit like r/developersindia or r/india and search for “hours”, or head to r/consulting and look for “india”). This is not even counting the ridiculous amount of work that blue-collar workers have to do in a day. What Murthy said, and many corporations expect, is an idea of brute work. The idea that productivity gaps can be closed by simply adding “more” work — no matter how that is done. In India, the states and Union Territories putting in the longest hours at work are also some of the richer ones — Chandigarh, Delhi, Goa, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra. This runs contrary to the global logic of high income and fewer working hours. Why? Because while the US may outsource work to a back office in Hyderabad, Hyderabad does actually have to do it themselves. And if the story of our states mirrors the story of the country — an economy built on the sheer scale of the working population and their relentless labour — then the basics of life will always be askew. Will 12-hour work days never end then?With inputs from Rajesh SharmaImage by redgreystock on Freepik