Sleep duration is one of the most reliable objective proxies for employee well-being, and the international data tells a consistent story: Japan and Singapore rank among the lowest-sleeping countries on earth, at 7h31 and 7h24 per night respectively, while the Netherlands, France, and New Zealand cluster around 8h03 to 8h05. The difference is not temperament or time zone — it is policy. The Netherlands has the shortest working week in Europe at 32.2 hours, with widespread adoption of four-day schedules; hourly productivity remains among the highest in the OECD. France legislated the right to disconnect in 2017, making it illegal to require employees to respond to emails and calls outside working hours, and guarantees a minimum of five weeks paid leave. New Zealand has run multiple national trials of four-day weeks with consistent findings: output unchanged, absenteeism down, reported well-being up. The countries that sleep well did not stumble into it — they wrote it into law and measured the results. The ones that do not have simply not decided to yet.
Your Sleep Schedule Is a Policy Document
The Dutch sleep 8 hours and work 32. Japan sleeps 7.5 and works 50. That gap isn't discipline — it's legislation.
Set a hard stop time for work and enforce it. If your employer does not respect it, that is a negotiation to have — or a data point about whether to stay.
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