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How do people in different countries spend their time?
- noahlt 16y agoFascinating statistics. I wish the charts had been designed in a way that made it easier to compare the numbers: for instance, I want to visually compare the number of hours that each country spends sleeping, but these charts force me to read the numbers instead of interpreting the graphics.
- stralep 16y agoPie charts are mostly useless... I really don't see any reason for their usage here, except of their resemblance to the shape of the sun (and analog clock).
- lell 16y agoAgreed --- looks like the rankings of the variables are the same for each country, and even the ratios vary only slightly. This information would be better presented in a table (with standard error reported) or a bar graph. The original OECD[1] report presents this information much more lucidly. When The Economist filtered the OED report, they should have paid more attention to clarity of presentation. [1] http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_34637_2671576_1_1_1_1,00.html http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_34637_2671576...
- aslakhellesoy 16y agoIf only the world would stop using pie charts. They are inherently broken. http://blog.jgc.org/2009/08/please-dont-use-pie-charts.html http://blog.jgc.org/2009/08/please-dont-use-pie-charts.html
- pmjoyce 16y agoA classic example of a poor choice of visualisation. Pie and donuts aren't always useless but they're very awkward to interpret here. I made a quick'n'dirty replacement using a stacked column chart if anyone is interested: https://demo.geckoboard.com/dashboard/CF6225A8BF97972D/ https://demo.geckoboard.com/dashboard/CF6225A8BF97972D/
- billybob 16y agoBetter, but still hard to read, I think. If I want to compare the green bars for two countries, they don't sit side by side, because the sections under them are of varying heights. I think this would be more ideal: Country 1 Work :XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (X%) Country 2 Work :XXXXXXXXXXXXX (X%) Country 1 Sleep:XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (X%) Country 2 Sleep:XXXXXXXXXXXX (X%)
- pmjoyce 16y agoOK, I've added detail charts - one for each metric - so you can easily compare metrics for each country side-by-side.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Jach 16y agoThey all look mostly the same, sure the French spend nearly double the time on "Personal Care" as Americans but when you're talking about 0.7 hours vs. 1.3 hours that's really not a big difference. I'd be a lot more interested in countries like Russia, China, and various places in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. More precise age groups would also be interesting.
- mkuhn 16y agoI think the number on "Paid work and study" had quite significant differences (Japan 6.3, Germany 3.9 (which is less than France and surprisingly low)) and was very interesting. But I definitely agree that numbers from a more diverse country sample could be very interesting.
- mironathetin 16y ago"I think the number on "Paid work and study" had quite significant differences" It could simply mean that in Japan a higher percentage of people have paid work compared to the other countries, like children work earlier, old people die sooner after employment ends (in France many retire in their 50s), higher percentage of employed women, less unemployment etc. pp. Not very useful data.
- zipdog 16y agoGermany has (or had) a system where you could work 3 days and get paid for 3.5 days. The government chipped in the extra, I believe. I think the idea was to encourage more part-time workers so the unemployment rate would drop. And for a couple intending to have a single member working, it would encourage both to work part-time instead.
- brunt 16y agoWhat exactly is "Other", and why does Germany do it so much more than other countries?
- tybris 16y agoConquering other countries. More seriously, I can imagine it includes travel to work, which tends to be an epic journey through traffic jams in densely populated countries like Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands.
- Derbasti 16y agoThen again, my experience of living both in the US and Germany is that driving plays by far a greater role in the US. Most places are 20-45 min away. In Germany, things like grocery stores, theaters, schools or restaurants tend to be closer to residential areas.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- hessenwolf 16y agoGermany is not really that densely populated. Germany: 229 p/km^2 US: 32 p/km^2 Netherlands: 1,101 p/km^2 (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...)
- Derbasti 16y agoHow does the 'paid work' part relate to the average salaries in these countries?
- demonicus 16y agoDoes masturbation fall into "Personal care", "Leisure", "Other", or perhaps "Unpaid work"? Seriously curious.
- silentbicycle 16y agoAmong other complaints (pie charts?), it seems odd that "eating / sleeping" are combined. Seeing each individually would be far more useful. The actual report (not the Economist summary) has better graphs and more info, though - perhaps that should have been linked instead?
- igrekel 16y agoI can't support this enough. The economist's summary had me just saying "so what", but after reading this comment I started looking at the actual report and I must say it is much much more interesting. http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_34637_2671576_1_1_1_1,00.html http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_34637_2671576...
- silentbicycle 16y agoPrimary sources are usually worth seeking out, anyway.
- igrekel 16y agoYes definitely. But in this case just looking at the Economist's summary, I didn't even feel it was interesting or worthwhile to look at the primary source.
- briandon 16y agoLumping in information gathered about people spanning such an enormous age range (15 through 64) is a bit curious.