Working Hours, Stress And Salary In India

WORKING HOURS, STRESS AND SALARY IN INDIA

(The Dichotomy Of The Indian Economy)

Anna Sebastian Perayil, a 26-year-old chartered accountant at Ernst & Young, sadly died in July due to overwork and stress. Many people are asking: "Why didn't she quit?". Well, this question applies not just to her but to almost all middle-class Indians in metropolitan cities - who are doing high-stress jobs. According to a survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) 60% of Indian workers suffer from high stress - the world average is 20%. So the question arises: Why don't all these people quit their jobs and do jobs that are less stressful?

Graph 1 shows an ideal economy:

1. There is a linear relationship between working hours/stress and salary (blue line). As working hours/stress increases, salary also increases - but linearly.

2. Most of the jobs pay a salary that can support a middle-class lifestyle (red line) for a family.

Graph 2 shows today's Indian economy:

1. The relationship between working hours/stress and salary is not just non-linear but exponential. The salary increases only at a high level/value of working hours/stress. 

2. To live a middle-class life in a metropolitan city (ie, house + car + etc) you need that high salary.

In the ideal economy (Graph 1) people can choose the combination of working hours/stress and salary that they are comfortable with - and still live a middle-class life. That is - they can give up some salary in return for lower/lesser working hours/stress. The choice can also be dynamic: People can do high-stress/high-salary jobs when they are young - and switch to medium-stress/medium-salary jobs when they are middle-aged. But in today's Indian economy (Graph 2) there is no choice. If you want to live a middle-class life, you *have to* do a high-stress/high-salary job. You are forced to choose between two extremes: low-stress but low-salary jobs versus high-salary but high-stress jobs - there is nothing in between.

Real development means building the economy shown in Graph 1 - so that there are no more tragedies like Anna's . . .