English: In the chart, you can compare annual working hours data from these four datasets. The data is shown one country at a time — with France currently selected. You can look at other countries by clicking ‘Change country or region’ on the chart, but note that not all sources publish data for every country.

As expected, there are differences between the sources. In 2000, for instance, Bick et al. estimates 1,642 hours of work for French workers, OECD estimates 1,558 hours, PWT estimates 1,550 hours, and Huberman and Minns estimates 1,443 hours. These differences are due to the use of different underlying sources and methods. Bick et al. use only labor force surveys; the others all rely primarily on national accounts data, but nonetheless still have differences.

It’s also clear that these differences between sources are quite small when compared to the huge changes over the long run. The difference between sources in 2000 is at most 200 hours, while the historical data from Huberman and Minns shows that from 1870 to 2000 annual working hours in France decreased by 1,725 hours (from 3,168 to 1,443 hours).