Chinese academics work longer and later hours than their international peers, according to new study published Thursday.

The study — titled “Working 9 to 5, not the way to make an academic living: observational analysis of manuscript and peer review submissions over time” — analyzed over 49,000 manuscripts and 76,000 peer reviews submitted to the British medical journals BMJ and BMJ Open between 2012 and 2019. From the fact that one-fifth of all papers from China were submitted on weekends, the authors concluded that Chinese academics are among the most overworked in the world, followed by their peers in Japan, Italy, and Spain. 

The study also found that Chinese academics were most likely to submit late at night. However, they were less likely than their international peers to work on national holidays such as the Lunar New Year.

China’s cutthroat “publish or perish” academic culture is largely responsible for the excessive hours, the study said. According to a 2018 report from the China Association for Science and Technology, a nonprofit professional society, the average academic researcher in China logs 49.7 hours per week, or nearly a quarter more than the legal limit. (Image: Tuchong)