A Harris Poll published in 2024 surveyed 1,170 employed Americans about time off. Thirty-seven percent of millennial workers had taken time off without telling their manager. Almost 40 percent of millennials had moved their mouse to look active online, and as many had sent emails outside working hours to look as if they were working late.
Among the biggest reasons people gave for feeling nervous about asking for time off was pressure to always respond to work inquiries.
In a poll for Bild am Sonntag, published in June 2019, the institute Emnid asked 1,009 people to grade the federal government with school grades. The cabinet received an average of 4 plus, 3.8. Only nine percent gave it a gut, good. Nobody gave it a sehr gut. 26 percent failed it.
In February 2023 the Pew Research Center asked American workers how important their job is to their overall identity. Thirty-nine percent said extremely or very important. Thirty-four percent said somewhat, and 27 percent said not too or not at all.
The share rises with education. Among workers with a postgraduate degree it was 53 percent. Among those with some college or less it was 34 percent.
In its endurance test, Stiftung Warentest runs washing machines through 1,840 wash cycles, about ten years of use. In a test published in October 2014, three of 13 machines failed. The three that failed cost between 395 and 555 euros.
In October 2024 the Federation of German Consumer Organizations had the institute forsa survey 1,001 people. When buying electrical products, 90 percent would find binding information from the manufacturer about the product’s lifetime important. For 87 percent it mattered whether the device could be repaired.
Of those who had not had a broken device repaired although they wanted to keep using it, 77 percent said that a repair would have been too expensive.
In 2016 the U.S. Travel Association’s Project: Time Off published a report on what it called work martyrs. These are employees who skip vacation to show complete dedication, worry they will be seen as replaceable, feel guilty for using time off, and believe no one else can do their job.
Thirty-nine percent of employees said they wanted their boss to see them as a work martyr. Among millennials it was 48 percent: “Nearly half (48%) of Millennials think it is a good thing to be seen as a work martyr by the boss.”
The Standing Conference of education ministers publishes the Abitur grades of every state. In the figures for 2025, 8,255 pupils finished with the top average of 1.0. That was 3.1 percent of all who passed. In the figures for the school year 2013/14, 4,569 of 324,431 successful candidates had a 1.0, about 1.4 percent.
The comparison has limits. The 2025 figures are provisional. Those for Baden-Württemberg are from 2023/24, and Bavaria had few candidates because of its return to the nine-year Gymnasium. The states also differ. In 2025 the average grade was 2.13 in Thuringia and 2.46 in Schleswig-Holstein.
Gallup asks working Americans: “If you won 10 million dollars in the lottery, would you continue to work, or would you stop working?” In August 2013 two-thirds said they would keep working. Thirty-one percent said they would stop.
In 2021 four researchers from Ohio State, Rutgers and Harvard published studies on people who agree with statements like “Time spent on leisure activities is often wasted time.” Such people enjoyed leisure less. They also reported lower happiness and more depression, anxiety and stress.
Their advice was practical. “If leisure can be framed as having some kind of productive goal, that helps people who think leisure is wasteful,” said Rebecca Reczek of Ohio State.
In February 2016 the Federal Environment Agency published a study on how long electrical devices are used. Among large household appliances, the share replaced within five years because of a defect rose from 3.5 percent in 2004 to 8.3 percent in 2013. Many devices, from smartphones to flat-screen televisions, were replaced although they still worked well. The study could not prove planned obsolescence.
The agency’s president, Maria Krautzberger, said that Germany must consider minimum requirements for product lifetime and quality. She spoke of eine Art Mindesthaltbarkeit, a kind of minimum durability, for electrical devices. The word comes from the best-before date on food.