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Desired and actual working hours of unmarried adults are analyzed.A discrete structural neoclassical model is used to explain desired hours.Desired hours depend on gross wage rates, tax and benefit rules, other income, and some background variables.The model takes account of fixed costs of working and of prediction errors in wage rates of nonworkers.Actual hours are explained from desired hours and hours restrictions.Deviations between actual and desired hours are used to identify equations for involuntary unemployment and the lack of part-time jobs.Explanatory variables include age, education level, and the difference between potential earnings and some reference (minimum) wage.The model is estimated using cross-section data from the October 1988 wave of the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel.We find larger wage elasticities of desired hours of work for females than for males.People with potential earnings below their reference wage have a significantly larger probability of involuntary unemployment than others.Apart from involuntary unemployment, the lack of part-time jobs appears to be an important source of hours restrictions.

The first part of this thesis deals with the incorporation of restrictions on working hours in microeconometric models of labour supply. In this thesis, the restrictions on working hours are identified on the basis of subjective labour supply data. As the use of subjective data is not (yet) common in economics, chapter two tests the predictive value. Using the subjective labour supply data, chapters three and four model and estimate the restrictions on working hours. The second part of this thesis deals with the common opinion that within the German apprenticeship system large firms invest in the general skills of their apprentices. Chapter five studies the consequences of two competing theories explaining this behaviour, and analyses mobility and wages of graduated apprentices in their first job to distinguish empirically between the two theories.

Empirical implementation of labour supply theories is usually based on realized labour market behaviour. This requires strong assumptions about the impact of labour demand. A possibility to avoid these assumptions is to make use of subjective data on desired labour supply. In this paper we investigate whether respondents’ answers to survey questions on the desired number of working hours contain additional information on the preferences of the individuals. Using panel data for the Netherlands, we analyze whether deviations between desired hours and actual hours of work help to predict future job changes or changes in hours worked. We use parametric and recently developed nonparametric tests. The results suggest that subjective information on desired working hours are helpful in explaining female labour supply. For males the evidence is mixed.

In the empirical literature on labour supply, several models are developed to incorporate constraints on working hours. These models do not address the question to which extent working hours are constrained within and between jobs. In this paper I investigate the effect of individual changes in labour supply preferences on actual working hours. The availability of subjective information on the individual’s preferred working hours gives direct measures on the degree of adjustment of working hours within and between jobs. I take the potential endogeneity of the observed changes in labour supply preferences into account by using instrumental variables techniques. Using the Dutch Socio Economic Panel, I find for women who work in two consecutive years that the degree of adjustment of working hours within jobs is significantly smaller than between jobs. I also find that job mobility does not lead to complete adjustment in working hours, as the realized adjustment is significantly less than 100 percent of the preferred adjustment.

We analyze models for individuals' labour market state.We distinguish between full-time and part-time work, but also between various types of economic inactivity, i.e. unemployment, disability, early retirement and working in the household.We consider the impact on the state probabilities of individual attributes, with emphasis on earnings capacity.We take account of the problem that only earnings of workers are observed, and of the potential endogeneity of earnings.We generalize the multinomial logit model, allowing for unobserved heterogeneity.Moreover, we allow for non-linearities due to, for example, minimum wages.Using micro-data from the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel, we look at static models and compare results for various years.Finally, we also look at dynamic models, in which the transition probabilities from employment into various inactivity states are modelled, conditional on job characteristics.

Desired and actual working hours of unmarried adults are analyzed.A discrete structural neoclassical model is used to explain desired hours.Desired hours depend on gross wage rates, tax and benefit rules, other income, and some background variables.The model takes account of fixed costs of working and of prediction errors in wage rates of nonworkers.Actual hours are explained from desired hours and hours restrictions.Deviations between actual and desired hours are used to identify equations for involuntary unemployment and the lack of part-time jobs.Explanatory variables include age, education level, and the difference between potential earnings and some reference (minimum) wage.The model is estimated using cross-section data from the October 1988 wave of the Dutch Socio-Economic Panel.We find larger wage elasticities of desired hours of work for females than for males.People with potential earnings below their reference wage have a significantly larger probability of involuntary unemployment than others.Apart from involuntary unemployment, the lack of part-time jobs appears to be an important source of hours restrictions.