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In Asian Barometer Survey conducted in Malaysia year 2007, the respondents reported their perceptions on their income and assessment on economic conditions:

a. Income perceptions:
Income covers well, can save - 20.1%
Covers well, no difficulties - 37.3%
Does not cover well - 32.3%
Does not cover, great difficulties - 8.6%
Decline to answer - 1.7%

b. Economic conditions in Malaysia:
i. Individual :-
Very good - 6.7%
Good - 34.5%
So-so - 41.2%
Bad - 11.2%
Very bad - 4.7%

ii. Family :-
Very good - 4.5%
Good - 30.4%
So-so - 58.0%
Bad - 5.4%
Very bad - 1.5%

c. Assessment of past and future economic conditions:

On top of that…
* 53.4% respondents own landline phone.
* 86.4% respondents own handphone.
* 73.2% respondents own car

Source: Asian Barometer - Bridget Welsh, Ibrahim Suffian, and Andrew Aeria. 2007. Malaysia Country Report. Second Wave of Asian Barometer Survey 

In Europe Social Survey 2006, the following question is asked:

Would you say it is generally bad or good for [country]’s economy that people come to live here from other countries?

0 Bad for the economy
…
10 Good for the economy   

The participants from 19 countries answered the question above and here is the mean score value of the result:

Country / Immigration bad or good for country’s economy
Switzerland - 5.92
Spain - 5.67
Bulgaria - 5.56
Norway - 5.51
Poland - 5.51
Denmark - 5.40
Finland - 5.39
Sweden - 5.37
Portugal - 4.90
Germany - 4.72
Estonia - 4.69
France - 4.68
Belgium - 4.66
Slovakia - 4.65
UK - 4.50
Slovenia - 4.29
Cyprus - 3.91
Russia - 3.68
Hungary - 3.42

Source:
1. Europe Social Survey 2006

In Europe Social Survey 2006, the following question is asked:

Please say to what extent you agree or disagree with each of the following statements The government should take measures to reduce differences in income levels

1 Agree strongly   
2 Agree   
3 Neither agree nor disagree  
4 Disagree   
5 Disagree strongly

The participants from 19 countries answered the question above and here is the mean score value of the result:

Country / Government should reduce differences in income levels
Denmark - 2.92
UK - 2.54
Norway - 2.43
Germany - 2.37
Switzerland - 2.29
Sweden - 2.27
Belgium - 2.25
Slovakia - 2.07
Finland - 2.07
Estonia - 2.04
Poland - 2.00
Slovenia - 1.95
Cyprus - 1.91
France - 1.91
Spain - 1.89
Russia - 1.88
Portugal - 1.78
Hungary - 1.66
Bulgaria - 1.55

Source:
1. Europe Social Survey 2006

In Europe Social Survey 2006, the following question is asked:

On the whole how satisfied are you with the present state of the economy in [country]?

0 Extremely dissatisfied   
…
10 Extremely satisfied   

The participants from 19 countries answered the question above and here is the mean score value of the result:

Country / How satisfied with present state of economy in country
Denmark - 7.60
Norway - 7.08
Finland - 6.78
Switzerland - 6.55
Sweden - 6.00
Cyprus - 5.72
Estonia - 5.57
Belgium - 5.45
Spain - 5.32
UK - 5.18
Slovenia - 4.95
Slovakia - 4.73
Germany - 4.25
Poland - 4.08
France - 3.70
Russia - 3.52
Portugal - 3.20
Hungary - 2.89
Bulgaria - 2.60

Source:
1. Europe Social Survey 2006

Hours worked (hours per year per person in employment), which is deduced from the total numbers of hours worked over the year are divided by the average numbers of people in employment in OECD countries for year 2005:

Country 2005
Norway - 1360
Netherlands - 1367
Germany - 1437
Belgium - 1534
France - 1546
Denmark - 1551
Sweden - 1587
Ireland - 1638
Austria  - 1656
Switzerland - 1659
United Kingdom - 1672
Portugal - 1685
Finland - 1714
Australia - 1730
Canada - 1737
Spain - 1769
Japan - 1775
Iceland - 1794
Italy - 1801
United States - 1804
New Zealand - 1809
Greece - 2053
Korea - 2354

If translates it into weekly hour work, it would be…

Norway - 26.2
Netherlands - 26.3
Germany - 27.6
Belgium - 29.5
France - 29.7
Denmark - 29.8
Sweden - 30.5
Ireland - 31.5
Austria - 31.8
Switzerland - 31.9
United Kingdom - 32.2
Portugal - 32.4
Finland - 33.0
Australia - 33.3
Canada - 33.4
Spain - 34.0
Japan - 34.1
Iceland - 34.5
Italy - 34.6
United States - 34.7
New Zealand - 34.8
Greece - 39.5
Korea - 45.3

Source: OECD Factbook 2007 - Labour market, Employment

Earlier on, the opinion of people think about what is important in job is compared among selected OECD countries. This time, it is interesting to have a brief look at the comparison between gender (male vs female) in their job selection criteria (what is important in job), again, from the 24 selected OECD countries.

How the data was extracted? In the World Values Survey, the participants were asked how important the criteria, e.g. good pay, in a job. The percentage of participants mentioned the criteria is compared between male and female, as the example below shown:

Important in Job: Good Pay

Australia [1995]   Male    Female
No Mentioned:      339        465
Mentioned:           670        574
——————————————-
% Mentioned:       66.40    55.25     (Difference Male - Female= “+11.15″)
——————————————-

Japan [2000]   Male    Female
No Mentioned:    114      117
Mentioned:           519    612
——————————————-
% Mentioned:    81.99    83.95   (Difference Male - Female= “-1.96″)
——————————————-

To make it a fair comparison between how male and female view each criteria is important in a job, the difference of “% mentioned” between male and female within the same country is used. “+” value means that there are higher % of male responded/affirmed to the question compared to female in that country, and “-” means the otherwise.

Next, the result of 18 job criteria conducted in the survey is listed in the table below. Mean value means the average number on “difference male - female %” of all 24 countries (some positive, some negative). Median shows the middle point of all the data points. As shown in the table below, the blue block arrow on the right means the male has higher % in mentioning such criteria in their survey, while the pink block arrow shows the otherwise.

Now, I am very tempted to explain the difference viewpoint between gender on the criteria which is important in a job by using evolutionary psychology EP (hehey, just my hobby, not my profession :P). Male will value more on good pay, good chances for promotion is quite consistent with EP outlook because earning livelihood and be ambitious translates into resourceful (?) and therefore good for survival and reproduction strategy. However, I am a bit surprise to note that good job security does not show significant difference between male and female because I am counting that male will be more anxious about losing their job (translation: losing their resources). The same would go to job that you can achieve something: male appears not to be much more ambitious than female.

On the other hand, the job criteria like meeting people and pleasant people to work with is consistent with female EP outlook: female emphasizes on people-orientated (?). A useful job for society is quite aligned with female/mother charity character-like (?). Lastly, good hours make perfect sense because female tend to spend their time with family/children instead of work.

Well, all the above mentioned theory is not exactly proven science or something like that. It is more like my pet theory But after typing these words out, I got the worry feeling: would it be politically incorrect to mention such thing? Well, of course there are other possible explaination for the results above and I would love to hear and learn more.

Out from nowhere, I have a curious check to see if the population (in log10 form) will have any correlation with GDP and Gini in OECD countries.

a) Population vs GDP per capita [2001]

Rsquare=0.145 at p=0.0546.
If the so-called 2 outlier points (the “+” is iceland, “x” is US) are excluded from the graph, the Rsquare will increase to 0.301 (moderately strong) at p=0.0055, as shown below:

Note: The colour of each point represent the GDP bracket: red - GDP <$ 15,000, black- $15, 000 <GDP <$25,000, blue -GDP> $ 25,000

b) Population vs Gini [2000]

Rsquare=0.162 at p=0.051. However, let’s say if Luxembourg’s point is excluded, the rsquare will increase to 0.280 (p=0.009), as shown below:

So, is there any reason for why higher population has lower GDP per capita and higher Gini, i.e. income inequality? Or should there be any explanation at all? Could it be that if the population is small, it will be more managable? I mean it could not be that because a country’s GDP is low, therefore they want higher population? Any input?

Source:

1) Population: World Bank, 2000
2) GDP per capita: OECD
3) Gini 2000: OECD

After 5 posts on the series of important in job, the summary of what each OECD country participants’ view on the important criteria in a job can be concluded as below:

Job criteria - Average % say yes (Standard Deviation)
Important in a job: good pay - 79.2 (11.5)
Important in a job: a job that is interesting  - 70.0 (10.2)
Important in a job: good job security - 69.7 (14.3)
Important in a job: that you can achieve something - 66.6 (14.2)
Important in a job: a job that meets one´s abilities  - 62.5 (13.7)
Important in a job: an opportunity to use initiative  - 55.5 (10.9)
Important in a job: good hours - 54.0 (14.0)
Important in a job: a responsible job - 53.5 (13.2)
Important in a job: a respected job - 46.8 (16.2)
Important in a job: not too much pressure - 40.0 (17.0)
Important in a job: generous holidays - 34.8 (16.9)

So obviously money, or the good pay is distinctively important among all the job criteria. After all, people need money to survive in the developed society. However, it is interesting to see if the factors such as a) GDP, b) tax and c) income inequality (Gini measure) correlate to how people think good pay is important in job.

a) GDP [2000]

b) Tax (Total tax wedge on average wage in year 2000)

c) Income inequality (Gini 2000)

In the World Values Survey, the interviewees in the selected countries were asked how important these aspects in the job. In this last post on this series, 3 questions were listed like below:

a) An opportunity to use initiative
b) A job that you can achieve something
c) A job that meets one’s abilities

As for the result, the value in the graphs show the percentage (%) of the interviewee mentioned who mentioned that the criteria is important in a job:

a) An opportunity to use initiative:

80.8% Koreans think that it is important in a job as the opportunity to use initiative, followed by 72.5% New Zealanders, 64.5% Italians, 63.1% Icelanders and 62% Dutch. On the other hand, only 29.7% Czech think that this crtieria is important, so do 35.4% Portugese, 39.2% British, 42.3% Mexican and 42.8% French.  

b) A job that you can achieve something

Koreans are highly critical about the job criteria on what you can achieve in the job (91.8%), followed by Americans (83.8%), New Zealanders, Icelanders and Hungarians. On the other hand, only 38.1% of Czech people think that criteria is important, so do 40% Dutch, 46.7% Belgian, 48.1% Portugese and 49% Spanish.

c) A job that meets one’s abilities

High percentage of Korean, Japanese, Hungarian, Italian and Dutch think that it is important to have a job which meet one’s abilities. On the other hand, only handful of British (UK), Swedish, Australian, Portugese and Norwegian think it is important.

In the World Values Survey, the interviewees in the selected countries were asked how important these aspects in the job. In this second post, 2 questions were listed like below:

a) A respected job
b) A responsible job

As for the result, the value in the graphs show the percentage (%) of the interviewee mentioned who mentioned that the criteria is important in a job:

a) A respected job:

83.5% Hungarian think that a respected job is an important criteria in choosing the job, followed by Greece (72.6%), Korea (67.5%), Spain (62.9%) and Italy (61.4%). On the other hand, only 10.9% Danish, 23.3% Norwegian, 25% British, 25.9% French and 27.3% Australian think that a respected job is important in a job. So what could make that less rich countries people wanted a more respected job than the rich countries like Denmark or Norway?

b) A responsible job:

Next, 91.3% Korean think that a responsible job is important in a job. Then it is followed by Hungarian, Japanese, South African and Swiss. On the other hand, only 29% Czech think that a responsible job is important, and minority of British, Australian, Icelander and Finnish share the same opinion and rank low among the selected countries.

In the World Values Survey, the interviewees in the selected countries were asked how important these aspects in the job. In this second post, 2 questions were listed like below:

a) Not too much pressure
b) Interesting job 

As for the result, the value in the graphs show the percentage (%) of the interviewee mentioned who mentioned that the criteria is important in a job: 

a) Not too much pressure:

Again, most of the people in Korea are hoping that for the job which is not too much pressure, followed by Japan, Italy, Hungary and Greece. On the other hand, only 11.5% people in France, 13.9% in Denmark, 17.7% in Austria, 23.6% in Australia and 23.8% in Norway think that not too much pressure is important in a job and the rest of them are up to the challenge.

b) Interesting job:

83.7% of New Zealander, 81.5% American, 79.1% Korean and 76.8% Hungarian said that an interesting job is an important criteria in a job. On average, a range of 42.1% to 83.7% of participants would agree that interesting job is important in a job, and consistent at 65%. 42.1% of People in Mexico, 45% Portugese, 55.6% Dutch, and 56% Belgian think interesting job is important in the work.

Interesting reading for me actually. Did not encounter this kind of argument much, but definitely worth of keeping it in this blog if see them in the future

The Parable of Broken Window

When a boy broke a glass window of a baker shop,
a) should he be punished for vandalism? or
b) should he be hailed as local hero because stimulating economic activities? If he broke the window, the baker has to hire the glazier to fix the glass, the glazier in turn needs the tailor for clothes, farmer for food, or even baker for bread.

The answer lies in opportunity cost

p/s: Gary Oldman mentioned the same thing in the movie “Fifth Element” too

Oh gee, somehow this is my third post for today already. Why am I suddenly so productive in writing? May be I will be away for 1 week?

Anyway, there is something for me to ponder about about today’s happening. I just came back from a meeting with Japanese students at local university. Sort of like getting-to-know-each-other program, organized by my Nihongo-class sensei. During the meeting, we played a game called Bingo. As you might know, bingo is just purely a luck game, requires no skill or whatsoever. It is just a nice and simple game for ice-breaking purpose. For those who have completed the bingo pattern, he/she is rewarded by a bag of potato chip. And the reward is limited to first 12 winners (only 12 bags of potato chips there).

Well, the game went very well, pretty much everyone was excited to hope that they completed the bingo and have the chips! But at the end of the game, it turned out that regardless which group (we were divided into 4 main groups) earned more or less than 3 bags of potato chip, each group will be getting 3 bags anyway. In that sense, the rewards were being restributed!

Now I am thinking to myself, if we know that each group will be getting 3 bags of potato chips anyway, would the game be still as excited as we were experienced? We were excited because we were entertained by the though of we completed the bingo by luck (hence we are lucky today), or we were really hoping to win the potato chip? What if the game involved was not based on pure luck but required your effort/knowledge/hardwork into it? What would these people feel about sense of fairness/sharing vs I work it/I earn it mentality?

Haha, I know I think too much, afterall, it is just an ice-breaking game. Anyway, it was kinda having fun time to meet these very young and funny Japanese students, and that matters more than anything else, for that particular moment

At first glimpse and judging from the arguments put forward by Noor Yahaya Hamzah on her(or his? Pardon me if I just assume the author is a her, Noor, my experience tells me it is a lady’s name) letter to MalaysiaKini, the idea of negative income tax (NIT) sounds plausible, as compared to other proposal like minimum wage. At least I am much convinced NIT over minimum wages because the latter will/can cause unemployment. And that is the major setback I have over minimum wages.

Well, just found out that another reader is responding to her proposal. I can understand why Mr. Azhar is worried about the development of dependant mentality (waiting for hand-out) on those who are “waiting” for the extra bonus from government on negative income tax. Can we say that actually NIT is quite similar to unemployment benefit in the West? Government would surely worry about the free-riding issue as well, that’s why there are/should be certain measures are counted in to take care the free-riding issue as well. At the same time, I am not much convinced to believe that a basic income at RM900 (as proposed by NYH) is a “very good” incentive for people to sit back and waiting for the “extra bonus” from government. The amount we are dealing here is probably just good enough to cover the basic or neccessity of living, but if you want more than that, you have to earn it by your work.

As for where the Malaysia government can get the money from to support the idea of NIT, that’s another issue. But I guess NYH had pointed out few major problems in her letter already (reduce red tape, free the capital market, increase efficiency etc). As for tax more on the rich (wonder how rich is consider rich), there is something to be wary of not to overkill and hence decrease the “incentive” of people to work hard or/and creatively, aka, daylight (sanctioned) robbery. So much for the trade off I can think of, imho…

P/S: Mr KokTheng, please do visit this post regularly to see if you can add something… sort of taking care of my blog while I am gone for 1 week

PP/S: Well, it certainly surprises me to see my post was having 128 hits in short 2 hours time, thanks to Malaysiakini referral’s link here. I was having more thoughts on the NIT over my dinner just now, about the incentives… If NIT is implemented, what would happen to the incentives to all party involved - employee, employer and government? I was thinking would the existence of NIT encourage the employer the cut back on the salary, slow increment, no bonus and etc? Would the workers are more encouraged to take up the least working-hours job, merely making enough to pass the minimal wage in order to get the extra from NIT? What would happen at the point of RM900 job? More thinking for me about incentives, supply, demand…

PPP/S: As Rajan pointed out in the comment, the structure of NIT is different from what NYH proposed, and to curb the “incentives” of employer (read tauke) to offer lower wages than RM900 (the proposed basic wage) and employee (worker) has no incentives to bargain higher salary (after all, they will be getting same amount of money, regardless from whom - employer or government). Thus, the burden will or is expected to be shifted towards government.
As explained by Rajan, and now I put in table format, let’s say tax at 5, 10 and 20% and rebate at RM400 and RM500:
The lower the original income is, the higher amount of rebate or NIT you will be getting. However, the employee will still have the incentives to work hard for higher salary because the final income will be increased, even though the amount of rebate will be reduced compared to lower income. Furthermore, it makes fair sense that the government is giving out more rebate/subsidy to those who need it, like RM300 original income earner (amount subisidy/revate received=RM370 [tax 10%+RM400]) compared to RM2000 original income earner (RM200 [tax 10%+RM400]).

In the World Values Survey, the interviewees in the selected countries were asked how important these aspects in the job. In this second post, 2 questions were listed like below:

a) Good hours.
b) A generous holiday

As for the result, the value in the graphs show the percentage (%) of the interviewee mentioned who mentioned that the criteria is important in a job:

a) Good hours:

83.1% Koreans mentioned that a job with good hours is important to them, and followed by 79.1% Hungarian, 71.6% Japanese, 68.0% South Africans and 66.2% Americans. May be this is the reflection of which they think their job hours are bad in the respective countries? This is true in the Japan and Korea workplace, which is quite notorious for long working hours. On the other hand, only 30.9% Czech people, 32.1% Danish, 34.9% Australia, 36.1% French, and 36.6% Dutch think that good hours is important in their job selection criteria.

Curious to know, I wonder what would be the correlation between annual work hours and the opinion of each participant countries on the important of good hours in job criteria. After some google, OECD do provide the annual work hours per work for year 2002. Below here shows the correlation graph:

A moderate strong and positive correlation is seen (Rsquare=0.283, p=0.0062) between annual work hours per worker and the % of people mentioned the good hours as important aspect of job. So this could mean that the longer working hours make people in a particular country wants good hours in their job.

b) Generous holidays:

Again, most of the people in  Korea think that a generous holiday is important in a job, apparently due to the lack of holidays (as seen from long working hours). This is followed by Japan (70.6%), Hungary (53.8%), Ireland (45.9%), and Spain (40.2%). On the other hand, only 10.7% Norwegian would mention that a generous holiday is important in a job. It could be because that they are already having generous holidays (1328 hours compared to Korean 2390 hours). Next, 13.7% Australians, 14.3% Mexicans, 16.2% Danish, and 16.9% Czechs would say that a generous holiday is important in a job. It is noted that both Mexico and Czech have long working hours (1980 and 1882 hours respectively) compared to developed countries like Norway or Denmark. Their possible explanation could be that a generous holiday is a luxury, therefore it is not important. Just my guess

In the World Values Survey, the interviewees in the selected countries were asked how important these aspects in the job. In this post, first 2 questions were listed, and the value in the graphs show the percentage (%) of the interviewee mentioned who mentioned that the criteria is important in a job:

a) Good pay:

For all the countries listed here, more than 50% of the interviewees in the participants countries mentioned that good pay is an important criteria in a job. Among them, 95.6% Koreans, 90.9% South Africans, 89.7% Hungarians, 89.6% Greeks and 88.8% Irishs agreed that good pay is important in a job. On the other hand, slightly over 53% of Danish, 58.1% Swedish, 58.4% of Norwegians, 60.7% Australians, and 64.5% of Finnish mentioned that good pay is important. May be their social welfare system is good enough to cushion their worries on other expenses, thus their desire to have high-salary is reduced?

b) Good job security:

Again, Koreans think that good job security is important in a job, followed by people in Hungary, South Africa, Japan and German. On the other hand, people in Netherlands are the least mentioned about good job security in the survey, and the same goes to France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden. Any reason to explain why they do not worry about job security? They could not be fired easily? Backed up by strong labour union? Good unemployment benefit or compensation if they are dismissed?

In the World Values Survey, a series of questions on attitude towards work such below was asked:

Attitude towards Work: Work should come first even if it means less spare time

There are 5 categorical answers: “strongly agree”, “agree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “disagree” and “disagree strongly”. Selected OECD countries’s result is shown in 3 forms: a) the percentage (%) of people strongly agree with the statement, b) the percentage (%) of people strongly disagree with the statement, and c) mean score of the statement, by assigning value 5 for ”strongly agree”, 4 on “agree”, 3 for “neither agree nor disagree”, 2 for “disagree” and 1 for “strongly disagree”. The graphs depicted the result are shown as below:

a) the percentage (%) of people strongly agree with the statement: “Work should come first even if it means less spare time”

38.4% Hungarian, 33.4% South African, 25.1% Turkish, and 18.4% Luxembourger strongly agree that work should come first even if it means less spare time. On the other hand, relatively richer countries like Netherlands (3.9%), UK (4.0%), Iceland (5.3%) and Ireland (6.7%) would agree with the statement. I guess they value spare time more than work itself.

b) the percentage (%) of people strongly disagree with the statement: “Work should come first even if it means less spare time”

So, 23.0% of French, 18.6% Belgian, 15.3% Luxembourger and 12.9% Dutch strongly disagree with the statement. On the other hand, only 1.1% South African, 1.8% Hungarian, 2.3% Turkish and 3.5% Portugese would strongly disgaree with the statement.

c) Overall mean score of the statement. 5 for “strongly agree” and 1 for “strongly disagree”

Overall, the more developed/higher income countries like Netherlands, UK, Sweden, France, Belgium and Iceland have the general opinion shift towards disgreeing that work should come first even if it means less spare time. On the other hand, lower income countries like Hungary, South Africa, Turkey and Italy would definitely view work as more important or valuable compared to spare time.  

In the World Values Survey, a series of questions on attitude towards work such below was asked:

Attitude towards Work: People should not have to work if they don’t want to

There are 5 categorical answers: “strongly agree”, “agree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “disagree” and “disagree strongly”. Selected OECD countries’s result is shown in 3 forms: a) the percentage (%) of people strongly agree with the statement, b) the percentage (%) of people strongly disagree with the statement, and c) mean score of the statement, by assigning value 5 for ”strongly agree”, 4 on “agree”, 3 for “neither agree nor disagree”, 2 for “disagree” and 1 for “strongly disagree”. The graphs depicted the result are shown as below:

a) the percentage (%) of people strongly agree with the statement: “People should not have to work if they don’t want to”

Oh, tell me about it, where would be the place that it is ok for people don’t have to work if they don’t want: only handful of 12.8% French, 12.6% Turkish, 10.7% Luxembourger and 10.1% Belgian. Nice. So how exactly is the people going to survive without working? I guess not by social welfare benefits: only 2.0% Swedish, 2.1% Dutch, 2.3% Danish, 2.6% Canadian strongly agree with the statement.

b) the percentage (%) of people strongly disagree with the statement: “”People should not have to work if they don’t want to”

So 31.1% people in Denmark, 29.4% in Germany (West), 27% in both Luxembourg and Hungary strongly disagree that people should not have to work if they don’t want to. However, only a small percentage of people in places like Iceland, Spain, Ireland and Italy strongly disagree with such statement.

c) Overall mean score of the statement. 5 for “strongly agree” and 1 for “strongly disagree”

All of the participant countries generally disagree that people should not have to work if they don’t want to, except Iceland which has the score pass the middle point 3. The social-welfare based countries like Denmark and Sweden are seeing lower score (towards stronger disagreement) compared to Turkey and Spain.

In the World Values Survey, a series of questions on attitude towards work such below was asked:

Attitude towards Work: Is a duty towards Society

There are 5 categorical answers: “strongly agree”, “agree”, “neither agree nor disagree”, “disagree” and “disagree strongly”. Selected OECD countries’s result is shown in 3 forms: a) the percentage (%) of people strongly agree with the statement, b) the percentage (%) of people strongly disagree with the statement, and c) mean score of the statement, by assigning value 5 for ”strongly agree”, 4 on “agree”, 3 for “neither agree nor disagree”, 2 for “disagree” and 1 for “strongly disagree”. The graphs depicted the result are shown as below:

a) the percentage (%) of people strongly agree with the statement: “Work: Is a duty towards Society”

For this question, 44.2% Turkish, 33.8% Portugese, and 33.5% people in Luxembourg agree strongly that work is a duty towards society. On the other hand, only 7.6% of British, 10.6% Dutch, 11.1% Icelander, and 12.7% Irish strongly agree with the statement. The average percentage is 21.3%.

b) the percentage (%) of people strongly disagree with the statement: “Work: Is a duty towards Society”

12.7% French strongly disagree that work is a duty towards society, followed by 8.1% Belgian and 5.9% Greeks. Very small minority people in Turkey, Portugal, Ireland, South Africa strongly disagree with the statement.
c) mean score of the statement. 5 for “strongly agree” and 1 for “strongly disagree”

Most of the participants in the questionare agree (at varied degree) that work is a duty towards society, as seen that the average score of this question is above middle point 3. People in Turkey, Portugal, South Africa and Hungary score higher point (strongly agree) towards the opinion that work is a duty, while on average, people in UK, Greece, Iceland slightly agree with the statement.

My daily book-reading list:

Principles of Microeconomics, N. Gregory Mankiw - for my Tuesday book club meeting

Basic Economics: A Citizens Guide to the Economy, Thomas Sowell - Additional daily dose on economics reading

Introduction to Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology, Hong Xiao - Preparing for the job market

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand - Bedtime reading.