Working 70 hours a week
Unexpected Elements
BBC
4.4 • 567 Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2023
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on the show with the science behind the news, we’re looking at a story that has sparked a debate in India about a 70-hour work week.
In an interview, the billionaire NR Narayana Murthy said that young people should be ready to work 70 hours a week to help the country's development, suggesting that unless productivity improved, India would not be able to compete with other countries.
But if you work twice as long, do you get twice as much done? The Unexpected Elements team on three continents look at research that sheds light on whether a 70 hour working week is actually as productive as Mr Murthy suggests.
And if you’re working all the time there’s less time for sleep – we hear about the marine mammals that manage on 2 hours a day, and the Inuit hunters in northern Canada who follow a similar pattern.
We’re also joined by Environmental Economist Matthew Agarwala, wondering whether traditional notions of productivity ignore the issues of the climate and well-being.
Our ‘Under the Radar’ story this week is from Kenya, where Trachoma - a bacterial infection – is still causing people to become blind. It’s one of a group of a diseases known as ‘neglected tropical diseases’, but why are they neglected, and what can we do about it?
In ‘Ask the Unexpected’ a listener wonders why eating makes some pregnant women sick and not others. We ask an expert for the answer, and we discover that the menopause is not as unique to humans as we used to think.
All that plus your emails and messages, including a listener who left a cult as a result of learning another language, and the mystery of the Eastern Australian Panther.
Presented by Marnie Chesterton, with Phillys Mwatee and Meral Jamal.
Produced by Ben Motley, with Alex Mansfield and Tom Bonnett.
Transcript
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| 0:52.3 | Last Sunday, I sent my mum a video of a mob wearing stripy jumpers or smugglers' outfits or dressed as soldiers from various eras. |
| 1:02.7 | They're carrying flaming torches and some of them drag an enormous paper effigy of the British Prime Minister on a cart through the streets as the |
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| 1:56.7 | I'm Marnie Chesterton, from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:59.7 | This is Unexpected Elements. |
| 2:14.1 | And I'm joined by the Unexpected Elements Society, which this week is the BBC's Phyllis Mwate in Nairobi, Kenya. Hello, Phyllis. |
| 2:22.8 | Hello, mani, Jujamba. |
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