The only twist is that less educated (and thus poorer) Americans have done relatively better than more educated ones (see chart).

Well, if we're in a situation where people can choose between being workaholics with lots of money and little free time or middle class with more leisure time, that's reasonable. I know that that certainly applies to many well educated people I know-- they have opportunities to work on Wall Street or in certain consulting jobs, but don't want the stress and time commitment regardless of the money.

Overall a very interesting story, but there are some questionable points within it. For example, one of the big increases in leisure time activity is eating in restaurants and with it a drop in time spent preparing meals. This accounts for a significant shift in the total results.
But is it really a shift of the nature described. Maybe one of the reasons for this shift is that people are so busy now with both parents working that the eat out because they do not have time to prepare meals. So is stopping by a quick food place to get take out on the way home rather then preparing a meal at home really an improvement in the quality of life the article suggest. I don't know, but it is clearly a debateable point.

Dan, I have no data that tracks the trends in how Europeans and Americans spend their hours. However, "snapshot" time diary studies do exist which compare some European countries with America.

For example, this study has some data on the differences between Germany and the United States. According to this data, Americans have slightly more leisure time than Germans.

Here is another example of the differences between Sweden and the United States (scroll down to point 3). Again, Americans seem to enjoy more leisure than the Swedes. Surprising results if true.

How much use are these macro studies, I wonder?

How much time "on the job" do people spend goofing off? In my experience, a lot. And it's probably more prevalent in higher-paid than in low-paid jobs, especially where there's piece-work involved. Definitely a question whether you can make the comparison without taking this into account.

Also, between countries. My experience of Germans, for instance, is that when they're at work they really work -- not true of many of Americans I've known (often, the same ones who scoff at how much mandatory vacation time the Germans get). There is always this competitive subtext in these inter-country studies.

Also, between time periods.

And, when you come down to it, so what? Does this study have any practical consequences? If not, then perhaps the time spent preparing it should be counted as leisure.

I just read 6the Christopher Shea piece from the Boston Globe analyzing the Pontusson study. Without having read the Pontorson study itself, from what Shea writes it seems quite flawed at first blush.

The selection of countries and their groupings seem idiosyncratic. If you wish to compare the Liberal US to 'Social Europe' why lump the US in with a group of countries including Ireland, the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand? This only serves to blunt the strengths of the US particularly when done as a unweighted average, which seems to be the Pontusson method.

According to Shea Pontorson postulates two groupings of European social market societies. The 'continental' group (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, and Switzerland, and the 'nordic' group of social market societies (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland). The first thing I noted is that such relatively high unemployment countries as France, Italy, and Spain were completely ommitted. I can see merit to excluding Spain because I've heard that official unemployment runs much higher than actual in that country. But France and Italy?!!!

The 'average unemployment' of the continental group is 5.2% comparing favorably to the 'liberal' unemployment rate of 5.6%. Shea points out that this is not a weighted average and that German unemployment is 8.3%. A weighted average would pull the average up. He's not kidding. My informal estimate is that Germany holds 60% of the population of the entire group, so a weighted average figure might be 7% or higher. The current US figure is 4.6% I think. Add in France and Italy properly weighted and the difference worsens even more.

The nordic group of countries is an interesting case, but is the total combined population of the 4 nordic countries even as high as 10% of US population? They are very sparsely-populated countries so it might be instructive to compare them to Canada or Australia, I think.

It's also not clear whether the Nordic model works anywhere outside of the area (or has even been tried). Some data I've seen are persuasive that it may be working very well in the region. Good for them - but is this not a little like comparing avecados and lemons on the basis that they are both fruits?

Don, can it be true that someone calculated a non-weighted multi-national unemployment statistic? That would be an absurdity. I suppose a lot of people actually believed it.

Ron,

I don't know. My only source is Shea and that's what I think he wrote....

You are quite correct - it makes no sense. Unless perhaps you are trying to prove a point and aren't too scrupulous in the methods you care to use, I guess. But I don't know that.

snip:

"Even when it comes to unemployment-the pothole for European economies in recent years-the liberal- and social-market figures aren't as divergent as you might think. Germany had a dismal average unemployment rate from 2000 to 2003 of roughly 8.4 percent. But, overall, the continental social-market economies saw 5.2 percent unemployment over that period, compared with 5.6 percent for the liberal-market economies. (Pontusson doesn't weight the countries by size; if he did, Germany would drag down the European average.)"

This was the passage from the Shea link which I was referring to, Ron. It looks like an unweighted average to me. Perhaps Shea was simply wrong, or a misprint or something? ;)

Now I'm really confused. I dug up an old copy of the Economist (April 2005) and looked up the unemployment figures for the five countires in the continental group.

Germany 12.0
Belgium 12.7
Austria 4.6
Switzerland 3.9
Netherlands 6.5

Even as an unweighted average that doesn't seem to work out as anything near 5.2%! I would think a faily major boom in the eurozone would be needed to change this much, and I haven't seen any such reported.....

The German numbers are lower if you go by the international standards. If you work up to 15 hours in Germany and are looking for a full time job you count as unemployed. In the US for example you are employed as soon as you have any work at all. Even babysitting could count. 12% look very high to me even then.