India works more, lives less

The first day of a new year invites optimism, but it can also serve as a pause to ask uncomfortable questions about how we live and work. One such question sits quietly beneath India’s growth narrative. Why does a country that works some of the longest hours in the world still struggle to convert that effort into broad prosperity, wellbeing and time for life beyond work?

Across offices, factories, shops and homes in India, long hours are worn as a badge of seriousness. Late nights signal commitment, exhaustion is mistaken for ambition, and rest is treated as a reward to be earned rather than a condition for functioning well.

Hustle has become a moral language, not merely an economic one. Yet this culture of constant work has not delivered commensurate gains in productivity, wages or quality of life. Instead, it has normalised a quiet imbalance, working more while living less.

The data underlines the contradiction. International labour estimates show that Indian workers put in close to 46 hours a week on average, higher than most advanced economies. A significant share of workers log more than 49 hours a week, placing India among countries with the longest working weeks globally. This is not a marginal difference but a structural feature of how work is organised.

Yet when output is measured against time, the picture flips. India’s labour productivity, measured as output per hour worked, remains a fraction of that in high income economies. In simple terms, Indians spend more time at work but produce less value per hour than workers in countries with shorter working weeks. This gap is not explained by effort or motivation. It reflects how work is structured, managed and supported.

Too often, long hours compensate for inefficiency rather than creating value. In white collar work, especially in services, time has become a proxy for contribution. Employees remain online long after tasks are complete because visibility matters more than outcomes. Meetings stretch into evenings, emails replace decisions, and responsiveness substitutes for responsibility. Productivity suffers, but busyness flourishes.

In informal and semi formal work, the problem is more severe and more human. Street vendors, delivery workers, domestic workers and small traders routinely work 12-hour days or longer, not because it raises productivity, but because survival demands it. When incomes are uncertain and social security is thin, time becomes the only lever workers can pull. The result is chronic overwork with little chance of upward mobility. Effort does not translate into stability.

This reality is often defended with a familiar argument. India is still developing, it must work harder to catch up. Rest and balance are luxuries of richer societies. This logic is seductive but flawed. Historically, productivity gains have not come from longer hours, but from better use of time. Countries reduced working hours not after they became productive, but as part of becoming productive. Efficiency created time, and time supported health, learning and innovation.

India risks reversing that sequence. When long hours are cheap and socially rewarded, firms face less pressure to invest in technology, training or organisational reform. Why redesign workflows when labour can simply stay longer? Why invest in skills when output can be squeezed from time? Overwork becomes an invisible subsidy that props up inefficiency.

The health costs of this model are increasingly visible. Global public health research has linked long working hours to higher risks of heart disease, mental stress and premature mortality. India’s rising conversation around burnout is not anecdotal. It reflects a workforce stretched beyond sustainable limits, particularly among younger workers entering employment already conditioned to accept exhaustion as normal.

The pandemic briefly disrupted these assumptions. Remote work exposed how much time had been absorbed by performative presence rather than meaningful output. For many workers, productivity improved when control over time increased. Commutes vanished, meetings shortened, and tasks were judged by completion rather than attendance. Yet the lesson proved fragile. As offices reopened, old habits returned, driven by managerial anxiety and a belief that discipline is measured in hours logged, not outcomes delivered.

Policy has largely reinforced this imbalance. India’s labour debate remains fixated on employment quantity rather than quality. Jobs are counted, but rarely examined. Hours worked, wages earned, job security and work life balance seldom feature in economic policymaking with the seriousness they deserve. Labour reforms are discussed through the lens of compliance and flexibility, not productivity or human capital.

Urban design compounds the problem. Long commutes quietly extend the working day, particularly for lower income workers. Time lost in traffic is not counted as work, yet it directly reduces rest and recovery. Cities that force people to travel hours for employment effectively extract unpaid labour from daily life. Productivity falls, fatigue rises, and social time disappears.

Gender sharpens the imbalance further. Women often perform a double shift, paid work followed by unpaid care. Long formal work hours push domestic responsibilities into the margins of the day, intensifying time poverty. This is one reason female workforce participation remains stubbornly low. A culture that equates commitment with constant availability is structurally hostile to care responsibilities.

Encouragingly, the debate is beginning to surface in policy circles. Proposals such as a right to disconnect signal recognition that unchecked work hours harm both productivity and wellbeing. But legislation alone will not shift norms. The deeper change must come from how organisations measure performance, how managers are trained, and how society values time outside paid work.

None of this requires importing foreign ideals or diluting ambition. Productivity and wellbeing are not opposing goals. Clear performance metrics, investment in skills, better management practices and technology adoption reduce the need for brute effort. Enforcing reasonable working hours is not anti-growth. It is pro-efficiency. Strengthening social security reduces the compulsion to overwork for survival. Improving urban transport gives people back time without reducing output.

The first day of a new year is not about grand resolutions. It is simply a pause, a moment to notice the assumptions that quietly shape daily life. One of those assumptions is that longer hours are proof of seriousness and sacrifice is a substitute for efficiency. That belief has gone largely unchallenged, even as its costs become harder to ignore.

India does not need to work less to grow. It needs to work better. An economy that values time, productivity and wellbeing together will produce not only higher output, but more secure lives. Growth that consumes time without improving how people live is not strength. The pause at the start of the year is a reminder that progress is not measured by how exhausted a society becomes, but by how effectively work supports life beyond it.

Aditi Verma is a journalist and policy commentator focusing on urban development, sustainability and public governance