The research found that working 55 hours or more a week was associated with a 35% higher risk of stroke and a 17% higher risk of dying from heart disease, compared with a working week of 35 to 40 hours.
The study, conducted with the International Labour Organization (ILO), also showed almost three quarters of those that died as a result of working long hours were middle-aged or older men.
Often, the deaths occurred much later in life, sometimes decades later, than the long hours were worked.
Is this science? You know, people say “follow the science” but most people aren’t smart enough to understand science, let alone explain it to others.
Lots of problems with this one, starting with the fact that “associated with” doesn’t imply cause and effect and doesn’t mean the same thing as “hard work is killing a specific number of people every year.” Were obesity and other comorbidities controlled for? Smoking, drinking, other poor health habits?
I note that a large majority of the deaths were middle-aged or older men. That’s what old men do, you know. They die.
And finally, the deaths often occurred “much later in life, sometimes decades later, than the long hours were worked.”
So maybe the work didn’t kill them at all. Maybe retirement killed them. Maybe if they’d kept their noses to the grindstone, they’d still be alive.