After my recent piece on Israeli investment psychology, several readers questioned my characterization of Israelis as "notorious workaholics." Some argued that working long hours doesn't automatically make someone a workaholic, or that Israeli productivity levels don't support this claim.
I think they're looking at the wrong metrics.
The workaholic label encompasses both the raw hours worked and the psychological relationship to work, leisure, and identity. Israelis not only work significantly longer hours than their European counterparts, but also exhibit the deeper psychological patterns that define true workaholism. On every measure that matters for diagnosing workaholism, the data strongly supports what anyone who's spent time around Israeli business culture already knows: Israelis have developed one of the most work-centric cultures in the developed world.
Long Work Hours
Let's start with the basic numbers. Israelis work 1,880 hours annually, placing them among the top in the OECD and well above the average of 1,683 hours.¹ That's over 500 more hours per year than Germans work.² But raw hours alone don't prove workaholism. What matters is why those hours exist and how people relate to them.
While Israel's legal framework provides fewer vacation days than European countries,³,⁴ the real issue runs deeper. Even when Israelis do get time off, research shows they struggle to use it effectively. The legal minimums become irrelevant when the culture itself resists taking breaks.
The Vacation Guilt Data
Studies found that 28% of Israeli workers report working during their vacation "often or almost always," and 37% admitted to working while on sick leave.⁵ We're talking about people who can't truly unplug, not just answering the odd urgent email.
Compare this to Nordic countries like Denmark, where cultural norms actively discourage staying connected to work during time off,⁶ or even to American "hustle culture," which at least recognizes vacation as legitimate downtime, even if people don't always take it.
Research reveals an internalized anxiety about being idle, where taking truly unproductive leisure time creates internal psychological conflict. The pressure comes from within rather than external social stigma against taking holidays.
Work as Identity
The deeper evidence for Israeli workaholism lies in how work functions psychologically. Multiple studies show that for most Israelis, career represents identity, purpose, and societal contribution rather than simply earning money.
Work-identity fusion characterizes true workaholism: when career becomes central to who you are as a person rather than something you do to fund your life. The mission-driven intensity that characterizes Israeli startups and businesses extends beyond achieving goals to validating personal worth through professional achievement.
Israeli investment behavior provides a clear example. People literally cannot justify leisure travel unless it serves some business purpose. By purchasing property in vacation destinations, Israelis reframe leisure trips as business activities: checking on investments, meeting with management companies, evaluating market conditions.
Sophisticated psychological permission to relax reveals just how deeply work-centric the culture has become.
A friend who visited me in Tbilisi earlier this year brought this dynamic to life. After just a few days in Georgia, he confessed to feeling genuinely uncomfortable with how relaxing the city was. For the first time in years, he was waking up naturally without an alarm clock. He kept instinctively reaching for his sidearm, a reflexive security check that had become second nature in Israel but felt absurd in peaceful Tbilisi.
Most telling was his reflection on Israeli domestic life: "If you don't come home at 9 pm completely exhausted, you feel embarrassed looking your wife in the eye." I see this as a post-kibbutz mentality: the lingering cultural expectation that individual worth must be demonstrated through visible daily contribution to the collective.
The cultural requirement to display fatigue as proof of productivity shows how deeply work has become embedded in Israeli identity validation.
The Military Service Factor
Israeli workaholism has specific cultural roots that distinguish it from American hustle culture or East Asian work intensity. Mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces socializes young adults into mission-focused thinking where personal needs are subordinated to collective objectives.⁷
The IDF's structure encourages junior officers to question their superiors and improvise solutions under pressure, fostering an environment where competence and initiative are valued more than rank or age.⁸ Military service creates adults who are comfortable with responsibility and ambiguity but who struggle to separate personal time from duty time. The flat hierarchies and improvisational approach that characterize Israeli businesses reflect military-derived comfort with intense, mission-driven work.⁹
Unlike cultures where long hours are imposed by external authority or economic necessity, Israeli work intensity comes largely from internal motivation and mission-driven purpose. People work long hours because they believe deeply in what they're doing, rather than because they have to.
Classic workaholic psychology.
The Productivity Paradox Actually Proves the Point
Critics point out that despite long hours, Israeli productivity per hour (GDP per hour worked) sits well below countries with shorter workweeks. At $60.51 per hour, it trails Germany's $93.81 and Denmark's $99.23.¹⁰ According to McKinsey analysis, Israel's labor productivity is approximately 40% lower than the average of the top half of OECD economies.¹¹
The productivity gap actually reinforces the workaholic diagnosis. Critics who point to low productivity as evidence against the workaholic label miss the point entirely. True workaholics often work inefficiently because they equate time spent with value created. They stay late due to psychological compulsion rather than task requirements, because leaving feels like giving up.
Israeli work culture prizes improvisation over processes, debate over efficiency, and mission completion over time management. The cultural traits that drive Israel's innovation success (chutzpah (audacity), flat hierarchies, and preference for improvisation over rigid processes¹²) are often at odds with the systematic efficiency that drives productivity in large, established industries.¹³ Cultural characteristics foster world-class innovation in the technology sector but hinder the systematic efficiency required to boost productivity across the broader economy.¹⁴
The fact that Israelis work 500+ more hours than Germans while producing less economic value per hour suggests exactly the kind of inefficient intensity that characterizes workaholic behavior.
Culture vs. Balance
The workaholic label becomes even clearer when you examine Israeli approaches to work-life integration. Rather than maintaining boundaries between professional and personal spheres, Israeli culture encourages their merger.
Colleagues frequently form core social circles. Professional networks overlap heavily with personal relationships. Work-related conversations continue through family dinners and social gatherings.
Work-life fusion occurs when professional identity becomes so central that non-work activities feel secondary or require justification. The approach goes beyond the healthy work-life integration promoted by modern management theory, where personal and professional needs are balanced.
The Stealth Wealth Connection
Israeli investment behavior provides additional evidence. The preference for "stealth wealth" over conspicuous consumption reflects a culture where professional achievement matters more than material display. Wealthy Israelis drive modest cars and wear casual clothes because external status symbols carry less weight than work-based identity validation.
The culture measures worth primarily through professional contribution rather than lifestyle choices; almost textbook workaholic prioritization.
Different from Other Long-Hour Cultures
Israeli workaholism differs from other long-hour cultures in important ways:
Mexico's long hours (2,207 annually) stem largely from weak labor protections and economic necessity, not psychological attachment to work. [15]
South Korea's work culture (1,872 hours) has generated significant social pushback and legislative reform efforts, indicating cultural recognition that the model is problematic. [16]
Israel shows no comparable cultural movement to reduce work intensity. Long hours aren't seen as a social problem to be solved but are actively revered as a natural expression of mission-driven culture.
What Seems Obvious
The feedback questioning Israeli workaholism misses how the syndrome actually manifests in modern knowledge economies. We're not talking about sweatshop exploitation or poverty-driven necessity. We're looking at psychological inability to separate personal worth from professional achievement.
Israelis work long hours, struggle to disconnect during time off, integrate work identity into personal relationships, justify leisure through business purposes, and maintain intense mission focus even when it reduces efficiency. That goes well beyond "working hard" into textbook workaholism adapted to a prosperous, innovation-driven economy.
The productivity paradox only reinforces the diagnosis. If Israelis were simply rational economic actors maximizing output, they would work fewer, more efficient hours like their German or Danish counterparts. Instead, they work longer hours that generate less value per hour because the hours themselves serve psychological rather than purely economic functions.
The workaholic culture shapes everything from investment decisions to social relationships to vacation planning. Understanding it means recognizing how deeply work-centric values influence behavior in ways that pure economic analysis misses.
The data confirms this reality completely.
When my friend visited Tbilisi, he couldn't handle how peaceful it was. Years of Israeli work culture had rewired him to expect constant pressure. Without that familiar stress, he felt lost. The biggest shock wasn't the safety or the relaxed pace - it was discovering he'd internalized the belief that being tired proved his value.
Remarkably enough: Israelis buy vacation properties because they literally cannot justify pure leisure time. Every trip needs a business angle, every break requires productive purpose. The "vacation guilt factor" drives billions in real estate investment flows. Property investment becomes the bridge between personal enjoyment and professional validation, allowing vacation while maintaining productivity credentials.
So, the next time you meet an Israeli investor wearing a wrinkled shirt and asking detailed questions about rental yields, remember: you're not just looking at someone evaluating property. You’re watching someone grapple internally with the psychological puzzle of justifying a break.
Sources
Ranked: Average Working Hours by Country - Visual Capitalist. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-average-working-hours-by-country/
Germany Hours worked - data, chart | TheGlobalEconomy.com. https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Germany/hours_worked/
Israel Leave Laws & Holidays - Vacation Tracker. https://vacationtracker.io/leave-laws/asia/israel/
List of minimum annual leave by country - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country
Work Culture in Israel: A Comprehensive Guide - LearnWorlds. https://aliyah.learnworlds.com/blog/work-culture-in-israel-a-comprehensive-guide
Work life balance | The key to the most efficient workers - Denmark.dk. https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/work-life-balance
Start-up Nation - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Start-up_Nation
Excerpt: Start-Up Nation - Council on Foreign Relations. https://www.cfr.org/excerpt-start-nation
Cultivating Company Culture: The Secret Sauce of Successful Israeli Tech Startups - Newxel. https://newxel.com/blog/cultivating-company-culture-israeli-tech-startups/
List of countries by labour productivity - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity
Israel's productivity opportunity | McKinsey. https://www.mckinsey.com/il/overview/israels-productivity-opportunity
Chutzpah - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah
'Israel's secret is its chutzpah': the role of chutzpah in Israel's entrepreneurship and innovation scene - an interpretive essay - IDEAS/RePEc. https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijbglo/v34y2023i1p58-74.html
Low productivity: A systemic problem across Israel's economy | Taub Center. https://www.taubcenter.org.il/en/research/low-productivity-a-systemic-problem-across-israels-economy/
Mexico, an OECD Country with the Longest Working Hours - Databoks. https://databoks.katadata.co.id/en/employment/statistics/66a0e84c3b05e/mexico-an-oecd-country-with-the-longest-working-hours
OECD Average Annual Hours Worked: Comparative Analysis and Implications - KDI. https://www.kdi.re.kr/eng/research/focusView?pub_no=18199