Leisure Time

How much do I love reports like this? The answer: a lot. Something about all the statistics and the figures. It's very satisfying. It's very hard for me to break it down and show you the graphs that are the most interesting. That's why I posted the link. Enjoy.

Basically, this is a report comparing the lives of people in 18 different countries. I have no idea how rigorous the scholoarship is here (Katy?), but since I like comparing the US and Europe and I like having data portrayed in graphical form, here goes. I'm focusing on leisure time here.


First, the percent leisure time per country.

Perhaps we should all move to Belgium. Or out of Mexico, at any rate.

I was shocked (shocked!) by this graph. Men, it turns out, have more leisure time than women in all of the countries measured. But good effort, Norway. And Italy! You should be ashamed of yourself.


Next: Holidays. Guess which country has the least? That's right, the good ol' U.S. of A. It turns out that we're the only country that doesn't legally require any paid holidays. I included the legend with this one, 'cause I thought it was hard to interpret.


Despite the fact that Americans don't have a lot of leisure time, it turns out that people living in the U.S. are still pretty happy. In fact, we're kind of an outlier in the lovely linear regression done here. Although, frankly, I'd like to know that the slope of this line is significantly non-zero before I move to Denmark.


Okay, that's it for today guys. Check out the link for more fascinating social trends.