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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27720 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Even among those with full-time jobs, women work fewer hours than men: averaging 43 hours a week, compared to 47 hours on average for men (2015). Among full-time employees in Israel, the difference in work hours between men and women is among the highest in the OECD.

Now we just need a number on real (not necessarily reported) Japanese work hours

I'm not sure there exists a statistic real enough if it's not in the direction you expect.

There are other factors than just “checks off working full time”: difference in what full time hours mean and difference in reported/worked because of Japanese culture

We're not talking about checking anything off, we're talking about a number of hours reported.

You are of course welcome to reject reality and substitute your own, but it's a sign of epistemic closure when you don't update at all in the face of evidence.

An exercise to the reader: 65% of men in Britain walk more the 3 miles a day, but only 40% of men in Ethiopia do the same. The top 20% of Ethiopian walkers walk on average 20 miles a day (and over grueling terrain), whereas the top 20% of walkers in Britain average only 4 miles (over sidewalks). Which population is more likely to be negatively affected from the problems of long walks? Clearly you are very smart, or at least you wish to indicate that, so I do not need to explain further. Whether the above distinction also applies to Japan versus Israel is an empirical question which you lack the intellectual humility to even consider, whereas my take is “let’s try to find the data”.

Intellectual humility is not code for "I'm going to maintain my preconceived notions prior." Your take is not to find the data, it's to dismiss the data presented that directly contradicts your implication that Israeli fertility vs Japan is due to women in Israel working more part time.

In fact, your claim was that it's "obvious" that this is the case, which doesn't sound very intellectually humble to me, so it's a little strange that you are turning around and using that cudgel against me when it turns out that it's not so obvious after all.

If we are trying to see how work culture affects Israel versus Japan we have to look at more than one narrow factor. “Part time” is one example of a larger “occupational breakdown” which I specifically mentioned —

  1. labor force participation: Japan’s is 74% it seems, Israel’s is at 59% for women. This 15% difference is enormous

  2. We have to add potentially 22 hours at the end of the month to Japanese overtime work https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h01577/#::text=Japanese%20worked%20on%20average%2022.2,overtime%20on%20average%20per%20month.

  3. The average Israeli part time worker works 22 hours, but it appears they the average Japanese part time worker (<40) works more than that just inferencing from graph break down

  4. I can’t find an actual apple’s to apple’s “average hours worked”; israel’s tells me among full time workers it’s 43hrs, Japan just tells me the top ~38% work at least 40

I have no idea why you hate complexity

labor force participation: Japan’s is 74% it seems, Israel’s is at 59% for women. This 15% difference is enormous

If we're talking about childbearing you have to look at the prime age LFPR.

Israel at 81%: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LRAC25FEILA156S

Japan at 83%: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LRAC25FEJPM156S

Not such an enormous difference after all.

We have to add potentially 22 hours at the end of the month to Japanese overtime work

Any reason to believe this isn't factored into reported hours worked?

I don't hate complexity, I just don't like it when people couch arguments in "obvious" facts and then migrate to other facts when those obvious things turn out to be not so obvious. If it's about the vibes, just make the straightforward vibes argument and be done with it.

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