Sridhar Vembu is the co-founder and CEO of Zoho Corp. | Facebook
Narayan Murthy is a pioneer who helped cofound an IT company that has a footprint across major economies in the world. However, in the recent past, his opinions, particularly on work-life balance or indirect advocacy against it, have been in prominence. Murthy has actively advocated for a 70-hour workweek for India’s growth.
Sridhar Vembu Counters Murthy
Despite backlash, Murthy has frequently directly and indirectly doubled down on the matter and compared India’s case with that of China.
Many have weighed in on the matter, some have opined against it, and some in favour. Recently, computing and technological solutions company Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu took to X to give his thoughts on the matter.
Answering the question of economic development, Sridhar Vembu said, “My response to the first question is that it is enough if only a small percentage of the population drive themselves hard. Please note the “drive themselves” | File
Low Birth Rate
Vembu, adding his thoughts, said, “The rationale behind the 70-hour work week is “it is necessary for economic development”. If you look at East Asia – Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China have all developed through extreme hard work, often imposing punitive levels of work on their own people.”
Vembu invoked other examples, including major East Asian economies, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the aforementioned China into consideration.
Further, sharing his stance on the matter he said, “These very countries also have such low birth rates now that their governments have to beg people to make babies.
Two questions arise: 1) is such hard work necessary for economic development? 2) is such a development even worth the price of a lonely old age for a large mass of people?”
India’s fertility rate, which is the number of children a woman would have in their lifetime, stands at 2.01 children per woman. This is below the ideal rate 2.1, which is required for replacement. In China, this figure stands at 1.18, in Japan, it is 1.26, while in Korea, it is at an abysmal rate of 0.78.
Answering the question of economic development, Sridhar Vembu said, “My response to the first question is that it is enough if only a small percentage of the population drive themselves hard. Please note the “drive themselves” – I am in that camp but I am not willing to prescribe this to anyone else. Some percentage of the population will drive themselves hard (may be 2-5%). I believe that is sufficient for broad based economic development, and the rest of us can have decent work life balance. I believe such a balance is needed. “
A Demographic Suicide?
Japan has an infamously low fertility rate and has acute demographic issues because of its ageing population. | Twitter
On the question of whether such a practice is beneficial, Vembu said, “On the second question, no it is not worth it. I don’t want India to replicate China’s economic success if the price is China’s steep demographic decline (which has already started).”
“India is already at replacement level fertility (southern states well below that already) and further declines to East Asian levels won’t be good.”, he said.
He concluded his post by saying, “I do believe we can develop without needing to work ourselves to demographic suicide.”
