Aren't you assuming that leisure time is worthless there?
Suppose country A consists of 99 peasants and 1 plutocrat. The peasants work full-time and the plutocrat consumes their entire economic output living a life of fabulous luxury. Country B consists of 100 people who work part-time and live simple lives that they can afford. Country A produces more goods and services and has a higher GDP than country B - let's say twice as high. Nevertheless it is reasonable to consider country B better-off.
Edit: The above is probably conflating some unrelated issues, so let's just simplify: country A works full-time (40hrs/week) and spends their leisure time expensively, country B works part-time (20hrs/week) and spends their leisure time cheaply. Country A's GDP is twice that of country B in the obvious way. Is country A really better off than country B? (If you're going to make a revealed preferences argument about working hours then bear in mind that there are very few less-than-full-time jobs on offer, partly an artifact of the way current regulations treat full- and part-time jobs)
In some ways, yes, country A2 is better off. I personally would much rather work hard and take vacations by airplane to experience other parts of the planet than to work half as hard and have my only leisure options be within a walking/biking radius of where I was born, lived, and died.
Interesting. I've never really got why people enjoy travelling so much - I've done a fair bit but as I get older I'm spending more and more of my holidays in my home country or nearby, and would far rather have a 2-week holiday close to home than a 1-week holiday far across the world.
For me, I enjoy experiencing the different ways other people live, work, and think and the different climates and natural splendor of the world.
The blue waters and great snorkeling of the Caribbean, the rugged landscape and Northern Lights of Iceland, the various cultures and climates across Europe, the stark differences between rain forest and desert. There's a massive variety in the world and I'd much rather experience that (and share that with my wife and kids) than to stay in my ultra-luxe Cambridge/Rt 128 bubble world.
Which is indeed a problem, as I enjoy going to the Caribbean and Europe. (And Central America, which is technically land connected, but 7000 km one-way makes it fairly impractical to vacation there by bike from Boston.)
Suppose country A consists of 99 peasants and 1 plutocrat. The peasants work full-time and the plutocrat consumes their entire economic output living a life of fabulous luxury. Country B consists of 100 people who work part-time and live simple lives that they can afford. Country A produces more goods and services and has a higher GDP than country B - let's say twice as high. Nevertheless it is reasonable to consider country B better-off.
Edit: The above is probably conflating some unrelated issues, so let's just simplify: country A works full-time (40hrs/week) and spends their leisure time expensively, country B works part-time (20hrs/week) and spends their leisure time cheaply. Country A's GDP is twice that of country B in the obvious way. Is country A really better off than country B? (If you're going to make a revealed preferences argument about working hours then bear in mind that there are very few less-than-full-time jobs on offer, partly an artifact of the way current regulations treat full- and part-time jobs)