Ebenezer Scrooge would have felt at home in Hong Kong over the New Year public holiday. The fictional miser who declared Christmas a “humbug” would have heartily approved of seeing nearly six out of 10 office workers spend the festive season at their desks.

A study found that 59 percent of Hong Kong people worked over Christmas and New Year, even though more than 40 percent of overall respondents said they believed workers would get very little done in the holiday time they sacrificed to be at work.

The number of people working over the holiday in the survey by office solutions company Regus was 5 percentage points higher than the global average and reflects a familiar trend among Hong Kong white collar workers to sacrifice their free time and family lives to be last out of the office at night.

While employees in other countries switch off the office lights at 6 pm or offer overtime payments to anyone to stays after hours, Hong Kong employees seem almost pathologically afraid of closing the office door behind them before their boss has gone home.

So why do Hong Kong employees spend so long at work? The reasons, according to Lau Yuk-king, a professional consultant in the Chinese University’s Department of Social Work, are complex and rooted in culture — and it is a pattern that may be extremely hard to break.

Lau’s studies found that the average working day for a Hong Kong person is 10.47 hours including travel time — putting the city way above the International Labour Union standard of a 40-hour working week.

More than 57 percent said they felt exhausted after work and 50 percent said work ate up time they would like to spend with loved ones, according to her research which concluded the conflict between work and family harmed people’s mental health and the functioning of their families.

"Some employees told me they are too afraid to leave early because it will impress their employer that they are not industrious or as hard-working as their co-workers,” she said.

Hong Kong people are not workaholics, however, Lau insisted. It is factors other than sheer love of work that make them spend so long away from home. “We work hard for our family and our family appreciate our hard work even if sometimes we have to spend family time in work,” she said.

"It does cause some disturbance on family life, but Hong Kong people are more accepting of this kind of work-life disturbances than people in western countries.”

Significantly, perspectives on long working hours are very different in the west compared to Chinese societies, where they are seen as a sign that someone is doing an important job and is somehow indispensible to their company, Lau said.

In her studies, Lau measured the impact of family life on work and the impact of work on family life. "We don’t allow our family to disturb our work,” she said. “This is a Chinese norm, because our employer expects us to behave this way. If not, we are not a good employee.”

By contrast, there was little negative feeling over the effect of long working hours on family lives. "I found respondents said the work-family enrichment is higher than the work-family conflict they experienced,” Lau said. “They found a more positive impact on their family life because they are at work.”

In other words, Hong Kong people measure good salaries and social prestige as a positive contribution to family life, even if it means the bread winner working late at night and spending long periods away from their spouses and children.

"Imagine, for example, my husband has a high-ranking job in a multi-national corporation. He may be a regional director earning a lot of money and I am proud of him, and my children may be proud of him,” Lau said.

"If he has to travel frequently to go abroad and go to the mainland, I will accept it because it is part of his work and he is making very important contribution to the family prestige and status and the family’s financial situation.

"As a result, I can send my children abroad to study or to an international school in Hong Kong. My family has a lot of choices, a lot more choices than families in lower economic status.”

Hong Kong employees might spend long hours in the office but they make the most of the precious little time they have with their families, Lau found, something she views as further evidence that Hong Kong is not a city of workaholics.

“I found that Hong Kong employees have a high involvement in (family) leisure activities,” she said. “So they work long hours but they maintain their active participation in family activities, especially with younger children.

"They are very responsible parents. They work hard but they seek out what limited time they have to enjoy activities with their children.”

Despite their long hours, an impressive 55 percent of employees surveyed by Lau had daily meals with family members and 59 percent said they went out as a family for activities such as meals or going to the movies once a week.

As a working mother of two, Lau has faced the dilemma of juggling the little free time she has with the need to spend time with her children, while she works more than 10 hours a day and hosts evening classes two or three times a week.

“I get up very early even if I return home at 11 pm or midnight,” she said. “I sleep for six hours or less and I get up at 6 am. I do it because I want to get up at the same time as my children and take them to the station or the bus.

"I take every minute I can with them. I treasure every minute. I am extremely tired sometimes, but I make sure I keep my quality parenting.”

Regus, a company which promotes flexible workspaces, warns that overly long working hours can call cardio-vascular disease, stomach ulcers, high blood pressure and depression.

The company’s regional vice-president Hans Leijten said: “There is the health risk and there is also the psychological risk of being exposed to too much stress which has an effect not only in the office but at home, where family life is suffering. People need to spend time with family and friends to make sure their work-life balance stays intact.

"There are also indirect health risks. I remember one guy, a sales director at my office in Holland, who significantly overworked. He was three times involved in a car accident driving home.

"There is a higher risk of alcohol abuse among people who work long hours. They can sometimes compensate with smoking or drinking for the stress level."

Long hours do not equal greater productivity either, he argued. "You need to be sure you have a balanced work and break period,” he said. “Productivity goes down otherwise. Problems you can’t solve between 6 pm and 8 pm sometimes are a lot easier when you start at 8 am in the morning with a fresh head.”

Hong Kong’s attitude to working hours differed greatly to those of northern Europe, said Leijten, a Dutchman based in Shanghai. “When you work in north Europe especially, it is almost like the lights get switched off at 6 pm,” he said.

"People go home and that is it. You have stronger unions. How many unions in Hong Kong actually bargain for working hours and overtime regulation?

"In Hong Kong, long working hours is a normal part of life. It is seen that I am important in the office or the boss is there and I want to make sure the boss knows I am trying to do a good job and put all my effort into it.

Leijten added: "There is another element that is very important especially in Hong Kong — many cultures do not have a good child care structure. In Hong Kong people are used to having an amah even living in their house. There is a whole different attitude towards working overtime.

"You can’t work overtime in Europe if you have to pick up your kids from day care or kindergarten — but in Hong Kong there is a much better infrastructure to support families when parents are both working.

"There are a lot of double incomes in Hong Kong as a result — and there is less social pressure to go home because of a family life that requires you to be home at a certain time.”

Employees needed to stand up for their rights to family time to effect a change in Hong Kong, Leitjen said, and he conceded that with the likelihood of tough economic times in the year ahead, it was unlikely to happen in the near-term.

"People will be a little more cautious in the coming year," he said. "But in the long run I think it is something that will change.”

Employers can help break the culture of long working hours by allowing for flexible work schedules, letting employees work from home, avoiding contacting employees out of hours and giving time off for a job well done, said  Pallavi Anand, director of financial industry recruitment company Robert Half Hong Kong.

"Employers need to change their mindset that if employees are working long hours then they’re working hard, especially if they want to attract the younger generation of talent," said Anand.

"Emphasising work-life balance and finding ways to help employees achieve a better balance can also lead to many positive results for the company," she said. "Aside from improving morale and retaining productive staff, it can enhance the overall health and well-being of employees."

The shift would have a better chance of success if senior managers took the lead, Anand said, a point Lau agrees with. "The situation is worse if the employer works very late at the office," she said.

"He may be setting a good example in his perspective but from the employees’ perspective it is a very poor model because it keeps everyone working and working for long hours. Good employers should leave the office punctually to encourage the employee to leave the office punctually and in a relaxed way.”

Transforming the unhealthy working culture of Hong Kong will require "comprehensive change not only at individual level but also in social policy", Lau argued. One major hindrance is the stigma that goes with accepting any form of government handout.

"Most people don’t have any sense of security in our society,” she said. “We are used to earning our own money and saving our own money for retirement. We try hard to earn as much as possible and save as much as possible. So work is very important to us. We make every effort to keep a good earning job.

"I think the government should create a more comprehensive pension system or retirement system so we can feel more secure about our future. Now we just rely on ourselves and we have to work hard for ourselves to protect ourselves and our families from uncertainty.”

Until that changes, Lau believes, the lights will continue to burn late into the night in Hong Kong’s offices. “That uncertainty will continue drive us to work very hard, despite the sometimes unreasonable requests of employers,” she said.

At their beck and call … even on holiday

Hong Kong office workers don’t just work the longest hours in the region. They are also more likely to take work home and get calls from their bosses on weekends and holidays, surveys show.

A survey by Regus found 57 percent of Hong Kong employees spend nine hours or more a day in the office compared to just 32 percent on the mainland, 50 percent in Singapore, 47 percent in Japan and a global average of 48 percent.

Forty-two percent of Hong Kong employees take work home to finish in the evening more than three times a week, compared to 29 percent on the mainland, 50 per cent in Singapore, 28 percent in Japan, and a global average of 43 percent.

A separate survey by Robert Half Hong Kong found 69 percent of Hong Kong employers expect their employees to be contactable out of office hours or while they are on leave, compared to 45 percent in Singapore, 22 percent in Australia, 20 percent in New Zealand and a regional average of 40 percent.