We often hear that the key to wealth is hard work.
But is it really?
British billionaire Richard Branson is quoted today as saying that the wealthy don’t work harder than everyone else–they are just fortunate.
Yes, entrepreneurs may work hard, but I don’t think they actually work any harder than, say, doctors, nurses or other people in society, and yet tremendous wealth comes with it and therefore enormous responsibility comes with that wealth, responsibility to do good things, maybe create new businesses and maybe tackle some of the more seemingly intractable problems in the world…”
He may be right. But studies on the comparative work habits of the wealthy tell a different story.
Research by professors Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst combined the results of several large surveys (including studies where randomly chosen subjects kept detailed time diaries), and found that the working time for upper-income professionals has increased compared with 1965, while total annual working time for low-skill, low-income workers has decreased.
As David Brooks put it in a 2006 column: “For the first time in human history, the rich work longer hours than the proletariat.”
Research by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, shows that “being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things and more time doing compulsory things and feeling stressed.”
His study found that people who earn less than $20,000 a year, for instance, spent more than a third of their time in passive leisure, like kicking back and watching TV. By contrast, those earning more than $100,000 a year (more affluent than wealthy), spent less than a fifth of their time in passive leisure.
My own experience tells me that the wealthy work insanely hard. I spent Monday and Tuesday with a billionaire who got up at 4:30 a.m., held meetings and business briefings until 9 p.m., ate dinner, then worked on emails until 2 a.m. He woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning, and started all over again. Seven days a week. This entrepreneur hadn’t taken a day off in 10 years (and I checked).
Of course, the inherited wealthy might be a different story (though plenty of them work hard, too). Still, at a time of lower pay and increasing demands on workers, it might seem like most Americans are working longer hours. But according to the OECD, total average annual work hours for those who are employed fell to 1,768 in 2009, from 1836 in 2000.
Of course, some may be working less not out of choice but by necessity. And maybe the upper-class are the only ones fortunate to be able to work long hours for hefty compensation. What is more, even the proud wealthy would admit that hard work accounts for only part of their success.
Still, based on the limited data we have, wealthy and upper-income folks really do seem to worker harder than everyone else.
Do you think the wealthy work harder than everyone else?
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09...r-than-others/?mod=rss_WSJBlog&mod=wealthbeat
But is it really?
British billionaire Richard Branson is quoted today as saying that the wealthy don’t work harder than everyone else–they are just fortunate.
Yes, entrepreneurs may work hard, but I don’t think they actually work any harder than, say, doctors, nurses or other people in society, and yet tremendous wealth comes with it and therefore enormous responsibility comes with that wealth, responsibility to do good things, maybe create new businesses and maybe tackle some of the more seemingly intractable problems in the world…”
He may be right. But studies on the comparative work habits of the wealthy tell a different story.
Research by professors Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst combined the results of several large surveys (including studies where randomly chosen subjects kept detailed time diaries), and found that the working time for upper-income professionals has increased compared with 1965, while total annual working time for low-skill, low-income workers has decreased.
As David Brooks put it in a 2006 column: “For the first time in human history, the rich work longer hours than the proletariat.”
Research by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, shows that “being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things and more time doing compulsory things and feeling stressed.”
His study found that people who earn less than $20,000 a year, for instance, spent more than a third of their time in passive leisure, like kicking back and watching TV. By contrast, those earning more than $100,000 a year (more affluent than wealthy), spent less than a fifth of their time in passive leisure.
My own experience tells me that the wealthy work insanely hard. I spent Monday and Tuesday with a billionaire who got up at 4:30 a.m., held meetings and business briefings until 9 p.m., ate dinner, then worked on emails until 2 a.m. He woke up at 5 a.m. the next morning, and started all over again. Seven days a week. This entrepreneur hadn’t taken a day off in 10 years (and I checked).
Of course, the inherited wealthy might be a different story (though plenty of them work hard, too). Still, at a time of lower pay and increasing demands on workers, it might seem like most Americans are working longer hours. But according to the OECD, total average annual work hours for those who are employed fell to 1,768 in 2009, from 1836 in 2000.
Of course, some may be working less not out of choice but by necessity. And maybe the upper-class are the only ones fortunate to be able to work long hours for hefty compensation. What is more, even the proud wealthy would admit that hard work accounts for only part of their success.
Still, based on the limited data we have, wealthy and upper-income folks really do seem to worker harder than everyone else.
Do you think the wealthy work harder than everyone else?
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/09...r-than-others/?mod=rss_WSJBlog&mod=wealthbeat
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