Patralekha Chatterjee | Stress, overwork, burnouts not the way to Viksit Bharat

The Japanese have a word for it: “Karoshi”. It means death by overwork.

I do not know if Indian languages have an equivalent. The tragic death of 26-year-old Anna Sebastian Perayil, a chartered account, certainly offers a chance to create an indigenous vocabulary to describe a culture that glorifies the endless pursuit of work, bordering on toxicity, and bust the many myths about overwork.

Here is what we know about overwork.

In May 2021, a joint study by International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) concluded that working 55 or more hours per week was linked with an estimated 35 per cent higher risk of a stroke, and a 17 per cent higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease, compared to working 35-40 hours a week. The study revealed that long working hours led to 7,45,000 deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease in 2016, a 29 per cent increase since 2000.

Pitting productivity against the well-being of workers is also flawed. There is little evidence to suggest that long hours lead to greater productivity. ILO data on labour productivity shows that countries with the longest working hours are not necessarily the most productive, even in GDP terms. At $146 (GDP per hour worked in 2023), Luxembourg tops the list of countries with the highest labour productivity. In Luxembourg, only six per cent of the employed work 49 hours or more per week. Ireland comes a close second, with GDP per hour worked hovering around $143, followed by the United States at $70. In Ireland, nine per cent work 49 hours or more in a week; in the US, the figure is 13 per cent.

In India, 51 per cent of the employed work 49 hours or more per week. On labour productivity, India ties with Angola, Samoa, Ghana and Bhutan, with GDP per hour at $8. Indian women in IT and journalism clock in an average of 56.5 hours per week.

So, is the story of overwork literally a story of diminishing returns, as Sarah Green Carmichael notes in a 2015 article in Harvard Business Review?

There is a large body of research suggesting that regardless of reasons for working long hours, overwork doesn’t help us, says Carmichael. Or more bluntly, “it doesn’t seem to result in more output”.

“In a study of consultants by Erin Reid, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, managers couldn’t tell the difference between employees who worked 80 hours a week and those who just pretended to. While managers did penalise employees who were transparent about working less, Reid wasn’t able to find any evidence that those employees accomplished less, or any sign that overworking employees accomplished more.” She also references other studies, including by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and her colleagues, that found that overwork and the resulting stress can lead to all sorts of health problems, including impaired sleep, depression, heavy drinking, diabetes, impaired memory and heart disease.

This doesn’t mean one cannot work long hours occasionally, if there is a crisis. It just means the human body isn’t geared for chronic overwork.

Back to Anna.

Her premature death raises urgent questions about the pressing need for balance between “work” and “life” in a country that is dominantly young (median age 28), chasing the national goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047, while grappling with high youth unemployment. Too many, including the educated, are chasing too few jobs that offer a decent salary. Anna died just four months after joining Pune-based S.R. Batliboi and Co, a member firm of Ernst and Young, a global consulting agency. In a letter to the company’s chairman in India that has attracted massive public attention, her mother, Anita Augustine, said her daughter had died from “backbreaking work”. “She worked tirelessly at EY, giving her all to meet the demands placed on her. However, the workload, new environment, and long hours took a toll on her physically, emotionally, and mentally,” Augustine wrote. She added her daughter worked “late into the night and even on weekends”.

Worryingly, in many sectors, work no longer ends with the work day. It spills over, blurring the boundary between working and non-working time, often leading to chronic overwork.

Since Anna’s death, Ernst & Young has been at the receiving end of a huge backlash. It has responded with a statement expressing “deep sadness”, regretting the “irreparable loss”, and pledging to place “the highest importance on the well-being of all employees”. Currently, the Union labour ministry is investigating the case. Questions are being raised about whether the EY office in Pune was registered under Maharashtra’s Shops and Establishments Act, a law that regulates working hours. The state law caps the maximum working hours for adults at nine hours in a day and forty-eight hours in a week. Media reports suggest that the EY office in Pune operated since 2007 without the necessary state permit. Is divinity-fuelled “inner strength” the antidote, as a minister in the Narendra Modi government recently suggested? The fact is that lack of sleep, lack of rest, chronic overwork puts one at serious risk of a total collapse of health. Prayers and meditation alone cannot fix this. One needs a sustainable work culture.

In a country like India, powered by the informal sector, it is not only white-collar workers or those employed by top consulting companies who are at risk of burnout or worse. Long working hours along with exploitative work practices, an acute scarcity of quality jobs, and lack of social protection are taking a toll on our youth across the socio-economic spectrum.

The story of 19-year-old J. Pavithran, a part-time delivery executive, is a case in point, and is no less heartbreaking than that of Anna. The teenager, a student, died by suicide after he was harshly reprimanded by a customer for being late. According to the police, a woman customer in Korattur, Chennai, scolded Pavithran for being late delivering groceries. She complained to the delivery company, asking them not to send Pavithran again.

Currently, India doesn’t have any Central law that aims to regulate the burgeoning tribe of gig workers. Rajasthan and Karnataka have taken steps to frame laws to protect the interests of gig workers. However, there are gaps.

The bottom line — premature deaths, burnouts, a chronically-overworked labour force — are not the way to Viksit Bharat in the long term. What we desperately need is a sustainable work environment that factors in health and productivity.