Top 100 Countries by Work-Life Balance, 2026

How the working-time ranking should be read

Mean weekly hours actually worked includes time spent working in the reference week and can reflect full-time, part-time and other employment arrangements. The ranking orders the values from low to high. It does not create a new score and does not combine wages, paid leave, commuting time, family policy, job security or subjective well-being.

The metric is useful for comparing how much paid-work time the average employed person records. It is less suitable for judging whether workers have chosen those hours, whether income is sufficient, or whether low hours result from underemployment. For that reason, the article uses “work-life balance” only in the limited sense of time available outside paid work.

The accessible source table contains 183 country and economy labels. Nine non-sovereign, territorial or separately listed economy entries were excluded: Macau, Hong Kong, Western Sahara, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, Guam, the United States Virgin Islands, French Polynesia and New Caledonia. The remaining 174 sovereign-country values were sorted ascending, and the first 100 are shown.

Top 10 countries with the shortest average workweeks

The first ten entries range from 22.95 to 29.30 hours per employed person per week. Several are affected by labour-market conditions that make a simple “best balance” interpretation unsafe.

Top 10 by mean weekly hours actually worked, lower is better for this time-only ranking

Ranks use the unrounded numeric values shown in the source reproduction. Equal values are ordered alphabetically.

Methodology

What the metric does not measure: paid annual leave, parental leave, legal maximum hours, overtime premiums, remote-work access, commute time, hourly pay, household care work, job quality, worker choice, productivity, life satisfaction or mental health.

Why low values require caution: average hours can fall because workers have secure short schedules, but they can also fall because of involuntary part-time work, weak demand, informality, conflict, seasonal employment or lower participation in intensive full-time jobs. The ranking should therefore be paired with employment, income and social-protection indicators.

Main ranking: Top 100 countries by weekly working-time balance

Search by country, filter by region or estimate type, change the sort order, or limit the visible ranking.

Showing 100 entries

Top 100 sovereign countries by mean weekly hours actually worked

Source chain: ILOSTAT modelled estimates, with the 2026 country values accessed through the World Population Review reproduction. Data checked on July 12, 2026.

Insights from the weekly-hours distribution

What the ranking means

A country near the top has a lower average number of hours actually worked by employed people. That may indicate more part-time employment, shorter standard schedules, stronger working-time protections or a labour market where workers spend less time in paid work.

The same position can also reflect underemployment, economic disruption or a large share of workers unable to obtain more hours. For policy or relocation decisions, this ranking should be combined with median earnings, employment rates, paid leave, childcare access, commuting time and life-satisfaction data.

The values are official ILO modelled estimates rather than raw survey observations copied directly from one national statistical office. Modelled estimates improve international coverage but still depend on available surveys, harmonisation choices and estimation methods.

FAQ

Sources