According to a study carried out by Spanish researchers, the percentage of workaholics in Spain today is around 4.6%, but in three years the figure could reach 11.8% of workers. Work addiction involves spending an excessive amount of time and energy working and doing it in a very intense and compulsive way. "Others work hard because it amuses them and not because they feel that it is what they have to do, they are workers 'engaged' or closely linked to their work," explains Mario del Líbano, a researcher at the Universitat Jaume I and co-author of the study.
To build the mathematical model based on the results of the survey, the Valencian mathematicians divided the population into three categories: rational workers (with 40 hours or less per week); "overworkers" (more than 40 hours) and addicts (determined by their level of compulsion from the answers given in the survey).
Based on the application of the model, the study predicts an increase in work addicts in all scenarios . In the OECD, the rate is 11.72%; 11.65% for FUNCAS; and in the worst case scenario of 11.55%. "From the study derives the need to implement measures in order to avoid the contagion of what is considered one of the social psychopathologies of this century ", the scientists conclude.
