America is the land of innovation and hard work. At least the latter is what a new study shows—that the workforce in the U.S. spends 30% more time in the office than their European counterparts. However, while lower tax rates are given for the reason why men work as long as they do, it's different for women.
That's because the women studied show, on average, that their long hours working relative to Europeans is due to two things: a higher tendency to work in the services sector and… divorce. Yes, divorce is shown as a driving factor in longer times working because the study claims that in Europe, divorce isn't as common as the U.S. So Stateside, women have to prepare—subconsciously—for a day when they might not have a second income to help them make ends meet.
This idea of marriage as an "implicit social insurance" for women is backed by numbers showing that American and European women are still typically the secondary-earners in their households. However, "European women anticipate not getting divorced as often and hence find less reason to insure themselves by working as much as American women."
Do you agree with this assessment? Let us know in the comments!