Among all the possible explanations for why China and India have experienced explosive economic growth in recent years, worker dedication doesn’t appear to be one of them.

According to a new Harris International survey on worker absences, workers in China and India – the world’s second and 10^th largest economies, respectively – are the most likely to take bogus sick days.

The survey, conducted on behalf of Massachusetts-based workforce management firm Kronos, found Chinese workers were the most likely to play hooky, with 71% admitting they had called in sick despite not actually being sick. India came in second with 62% of workers copping to the lie.

France finished last (or first?) with 16% while the U.S. (52%) and U.K. (43%) finished in the middle.

Credits for book covers and movie posters/stills – The credit has to be given to the book publisher or the producer of the movie.

The survey, based on responses from more than 9,000 people in eight countries, was conducted in July and did not include a sampling error.

Does this mean Chinese and India workers are lazier than their French counterparts? Not necessarily.

As Joyce Maroney, director of Kronos-sponsored think tank the Workforce Institute, points out in an interview with Reuters, France is among the most generous countries in giving workers paid time off with a mandated minimum of 30 days per year. China (10 days minimum) and India (12 days minimum), meanwhile, are among the worst.

“One could surmise that in those countries where more paid time off is given, people are less compelled to call in sick when they are not actually sick,” Ms. Maroney said in the interview.

Vacation time has been the subject of fierce debate in China, particularly since 2007, when the country abolished the long May Day “Golden Week” holiday and replaced it with three shorter holidays spread throughout the year. Among the complaints: Chinese companies were hesitant to grant paid holidays at other times of the year.

“Chinese people play hooky so they don’t die on the job,” joked a user of China’s popular Sina Weibo microblogging service writing under the name Xingruyu2001 in response to the survey results. “The worker’s compensation claims would be an inconvenience to our leaders.”

In India, meanwhile, part of the issue is also the contrast between the busy workaholic ethos of the city and the leisurely pace of traditional Indian family life.

“In the village, I could go to work whenever I wanted and take rest when needed,” says Amit Kumar, a 18-year-old worker at a New Delhi restaurant who recently arrived in the city from a village in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. “Here I hardly get any leave and it’s always work.” He says he feigns sickness once or twice a month and goes to visit new places in the city or simply rests at his room. His friends at the restaurant also do so, he says.

While China had the highest percentage of respondents – 45% — saying they thought employers could solve the problem by providing more time off, only a quarter of Indian workers felt the same way.

Interestingly, China and India were among the only places were a majority of workers said employers used an automated system to keep track of absences – something Kronos elsewhere claims can increase a company’s bottom line by as much as 10%.

– Josh Chin, with contributions from Krishna Pokharel.

China has generally implemented reforms in a gradualist or piecemeal fashion.

One demographic consequence of the “one child” policy is that China is now one of the most rapidly aging countries in the world.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

Nevertheless, key bottlenecks continue to constrain growth.

Its mineral resources are probably among the richest in the world but are only partially developed.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

Over the years, large subsidies were built into the price structure, and these subsidies grew substantially in the late 1970s and 1980s.

China now ranks as the fifth largest global investor in outbound direct investment (ODI) with a total volume of $56.5 billion, compared to a ranking of 12th in 2008, the Ministry of Commerce said on Sunday.

Last year was the eighth consecutive year that the nation’s ODI had grown.

China is aiming to be the world’s largest new energy vehicle market by 2020 with 5 million cars.

Although China is still a developing country with a relatively low per capita income, it has experienced tremendous economic growth since the late 1970s.

Agriculture is by far the leading occupation, involving over 50% of the population, although extensive rough, high terrain and large arid areas – especially in the west and north – limit cultivation to only about 10% of the land surface.

China is the world’s largest producer of rice and wheat and a major producer of sweet potatoes, sorghum, millet, barley, peanuts, corn, soybeans, and potatoes.

Hogs and poultry are widely raised in China, furnishing important export staples, such as hog bristles and egg products.

There are also extensive iron-ore deposits; the largest mines are at Anshan and Benxi, in Liaoning province.

Alumina is found in many parts of the country; China is one of world’s largest producers of aluminum.

The largest completed project, Gezhouba Dam, on the Chang (Yangtze) River, opened in 1981; the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest engineering project, on the lower Chang, is scheduled for completion in 2009.
Beginning in the late 1970s, changes in economic policy, including decentralization of control and the creation of special economic zones to attract foreign investment, led to considerable industrial growth, especially in light industries that produce consumer goods.

There are railroads to North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, and Vietnam, and road connections to Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Myanmar.

See the original post:
Report: Workers in China and India Most Likely to Play Hooky