Work week length in the U.S. and USSR 1970-1988| ��ƽ��

Average number of weekly hours worked in the agricultural and non-agricultural industries in the United States and Soviet Union in select years between 1970 and 1988

Characteristic	U.S. - Non-agriculture	USSR - Non-agriculture*	U.S. - Agriculture	USSR - Agriculture
1988	39.1	34.9	41.3	37.5
1985	38.7	34.6	40.8	37.2
1980	38.1	34.7	41.6	36.1
1975	38.1	34.8	40.8	35.1
1970	38.3	34.9	40	34.8

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Release date

1991

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Region

Russia, Ukraine, United States, Central and Eastern Europe

Survey time period

1970 to 1988

Supplementary notes

U.S. data is the annual average of monthly figures. Soviet data is the actual average of weekly figures.

* Soviet data provided is for "industry"; it is unclear whether this relates to manufacturing, construction, trade, etc. or non-agricultural industries in general.

** U.S. data is for wage and salary workers only. Data for self-employed persons is as follows:
1970 - Agriculture: 51.0, Non-agriculture: 45.0
1975 - Agriculture: 49.7, Non-agriculture: 42.3
1980 - Agriculture: 49.3, Non-agriculture: 41.2
1985 - Agriculture: 48.2, Non-agriculture: 41.1
1988 - Agriculture: 47.5, Non-agriculture: 41
For context, the share of paid agricultural workers who were self-employed was 61% in 1970, but fell to 48% by 1988. The figures for paid non-agricultural workers were 7% and 8% respectively.

Citation formats

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, average work weeks in the U.S. were consistently longer than those in the Soviet Union. In 1970, non-agricultural workers in the U.S. worked 3.4 hours per week longer than their Soviet counterparts, and this gap increased to 4.2 hours in 1988. The gap was even wider in agriculture, where work weeks in the U.S. were 5.2 hours longer in 1970, and 3.8 hours longer in 1988.

Additionally, this data is for wage and salary workers in the U.S. only, as very few in the Soviet Union could have been considered self-employed given the socialist economic system. The gap between work weeks increases significantly when Soviet figures are compared with self-employed workers in the U.S., where average work weeks in 1970 for those in agriculture were 51 hours, and for those in non-agricultural work they were 45 hours, although both dropped to 47.5 and 41 respectively by 1988.