In first 2 weeks of 2025, some of the news stories I’ve read are –
· Narayana Murthy has renewed his demand for 70 hours work week
· South Korea now has more people aged 84 years than 1 year
· L&T chairman SN Subrahmanyan has gone a step ahead and suggested 90 hours work week
· Japan has declared 4 day work to allow more family time.
At first these look like 4 random and different events with no correlation with each other. However, these are very much related and point to an underlying problem.
News headlines from Japan and South Korea are already indicative of a problem. Both the countries have one of the lowest birth rates. As a result, their population are already declining. One of the prime reasons behind declining birth rates is parents are so busy with their careers they don’t have time to look after their children. So there was significant increase in Dual Income No Kids (DINK) couples.
India currently has world’s largest population. However, there is a new urban trend of Dual Income Single Kid (DISK) couples. As a result, at some time in future India is likely to face same problems that Japan and South Korea are facing today. According to a study there is a 1% possibility that humans would go extinct by 2100 and can be considered as endangered species.
There was a period of time when I had worked around 80 to 100 hours a week for period of few months. It was tiring. It takes toll on your health (both physical and mental). It’s not sustainable in long run.
World is looking at AI for productivity improvements. When leaders from Indian IT and IT Enabled Services industry speak about longer working hours reflect very poorly on them and wider industry. So these comments are actually going to affect India’s image. We need industry leaders to speak about smart work rather than just long work hours. Hopefully, some sane voices would speak soon!!
PS – Isaac Newton has predicted world is going to end in 2060! We’ve an interesting period of 35 years ahead of us….