After Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy, CEO Sridhar Vembu has rekindled the ongoing debate on whether a 70-hour work week is necessary for rapid economic development.
Pointing to East Asian economies such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China, Vembu, in a post on X, argued that these countries have developed through an extremely hardworking culture, which has ultimately contributed to their economic growth.
“The rationale behind the 70-hour work week is “it is necessary for economic development”. If you look at East Asia – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China have all developed through extreme hard work, often imposing punitive levels of work on their own people,” Vembu noted, adding that these nations now face low birth rates, prompting governments to incentivise citizens to have more children.
Vembu then posed two questions: Is such hard work necessary for economic development, and is such development worth the price of a “lonely old age” for a large mass of people?
In addressing the first question, Vembu believes only a small percentage of the population, perhaps 2-5%, needs to work extremely long hours to drive overall economic progress.
“My response to the first question is that it is enough if only a small percentage of the population drive themselves hard,” he said.
“Please note the “drive themselves”—I am in that camp but I am not willing to prescribe this to anyone else. Some percentage of the population will drive themselves hard (may be 2-5%). I believe that is sufficient for broad-based economic development, and the rest of us can have a decent work-life balance. I believe such a balance is needed,” Vembu added.
As for whether a 70-hour work week is worth a potential demographic decline, Vembu is emphatic that it is not.
“On the second question, no it is not worth it. I don’t want India to replicate China’s economic success if the price is China’s steep demographic decline (which has already started). India is already at replacement level fertility (southern states well below that already) and further declines to East Asian levels won’t be good,” Vembu explained.
“I do believe we can develop without needing to work ourselves to demographic suicide,” he added.
