Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Actually, there is, and I think the key depends on how you define work. If you're defining work simply to be the activities that you get paid for - basically your job - then, yes, you do, indeed, see that Americans work more. We take less vacation than do the Europeans. On the other hand, if you expand your definition of work, and you recognize that work includes some things that you have to do around your house in terms of household chores, raising children, making meals, etc., as household tasks. You certainly don't get paid for those, but it's work. Then, actually, when you combine the two - work at home and paid work in the marketplace - you find that Europeans actually work as much as the Americans. Again, the big difference is that Europeans do more tasks at home. For example, Americans eat out much more than do Europeans. The service industry in the U.S. that replaces many of those tasks that we used to do before, like making meals at home or mowing our lawn or working on a car, the service industry in the U.S. is much broader than it is in Europe. So the key point here is that how do you define work? And when you think of it as this broad definition of work in the marketplace and work at home, Europeans actually are not lazy. They work just as hard as we do."