Search

Although constraints on hours worked at the firm-level are viewed as an important determinant of firm wages, little direct evidence exists to support this view. In this paper, we use linked employer-employee data on hours worked in Denmark to measure hours constraints and to investigate how these constraints relate to firm wages. We show that firms with stricter constraints pay higher firm-specific wages and that these premiums are concentrated in more productive firms. Starting from these findings we discuss a framework in which hours constraints are motivated by the productivity gains derived from having a more cooperative production process, leading more productive firms to constrain hours and to pay compensating wage differentials.

Although constraints on hours worked at the firm-level are viewed as an important determinant of firm wages, little direct evidence exists to support this view. In this paper, we use linked employer-employee data on hours worked in Denmark to measure hours constraints and to investigate how these constraints relate to firm wages. We show that firms with stricter constraints pay higher firm-specific wages and that these premiums are concentrated in more productive firms. Starting from these findings we discuss a framework in which hours constraints are motivated by the productivity gains derived from having a more cooperative production process, leading more productive firms to constrain hours and to pay compensating wage differentials.

In Chapter 1 of this doctoral thesis, I develop a dynamic discrete choice model of female labor supply and fertility to evaluate parental leave policies based on the German Socio-economic Panel (Wagner et al., 2007). Building on recent empirical evidence on the connection between fertility and unemployment risk, I emphasize the importance of labor market frictions and job security for dynamic fertility and labor supply decisions of women. To quantify the effect of parental leave job protection and parental leave benefits, I simulated counter-factual remaining life-cycles for synthetic samples of women affected by the reforms at different ages. I find that a reduction in the maximum job protection period from 3 to 2 years would decrease remaining fertility by 4.1 % for the sample affected at age 20, and an extension of the benefit period from 1 to two years would increase fertility by 4.7 %. Life-cycle employment effects are rather small. Effects on the employment rate are not persistent but effects on the part-time share among female employees are. I conclude that reform effects on parental leave durations tend to overestimate the employment effects of parental leave reforms. On the other hand, usually unobserved effects on total remaining fertility rates seem to be positive for both considered policies. In Chapter 2, I evaluate the 2001 introduction of the Part-Time and Limited-Term Employment Act (Part-Time Law) in Germany. This reform granted a legal claim to reduce work hours for employees in establishments more than 15 employees. Using employees of establishments with up to 15 employees as a control group, I estimate the causal effect of the reform on transitions to part-time work and subsequent employment in a difference-in-differences setting. I find that the Part-Time Law significantly increased transitions to part-time work for female employees above the age of 50 (by 1-2.5 percentage points). Moreover, I find evidence of increased subsequent employment in this age group (1 percentage point). In Chapter 3, my coauthors and I analyze how subjective expectations about wage opportunities influence the job search decision. We match data on subjective wage expectations with administrative employment records. The data reveal that unemployed individuals overestimate their future net re-employment wage. In particular, the average individual does not anticipate that wage offers decline in value with their elapsed time out of employment. How does this optimism affect job finding? We analyze this question using a structural job search framework. Results show that wage optimism has highly dynamic effects. On average, optimism increases the duration of unemployment by about 6.5 %.

We examine how male breadwinning and fatherhood relate to men’s overwork and underwork in western Europe. Male breadwinners should be less likely to experience overwork than other men, particularly when they have children, if specialising in paid work suits them. However, multinomial logistic regression analysis of the European Social Survey data from 2010 ( n = 4662) challenges this position: male breadwinners, with and without children, want to work fewer than their actual hours, making visible one of the downsides of specialisation. Male breadwinners wanting to work fewer hours is specifically related to the job interfering with family life, as revealed by a comparison of the average marginal effects of variables across models. Work–life interference has an effect over and beyond the separate effects of work characteristics and family structure, showing the salience of the way work and life articulate.

We investigate how Japanese men aged 60-74 adjust their workforce attachment after beginning to receive a public pension. Men who were employees at age 54 gradually move to part-time work or retire after beginning to receive pension benefits; those who continue working are more likely to be underemployed. Men self-employed at age 54, however, neither retire nor reduce their working hours even after beginning to receive pension benefits; these men are more likely to be overemployed. In contrast, U.S. men retire or move to part-time when they first claim Social Security; those who continue working as employees after Social Security starts are unlikely to be either over- or underemployed. Therefore, unlike U.S. men, Japanese men are not choosing the optimal pensionable age and labor hours to maximize their intertemporal utility.

This thesis aims to draw a comprehensive picture of labor supply hours and the extent and determinants of work hours constraints while pinpointing possible consequences and policy implications of such constraints and highlighting the relevance of individual work time preferences with respect to a meaningful debate on work time issues. Most particularly, it offers a comprehensive analysis of how the consideration of individually preferred work hours and the discrepancy between these and actual work hours can foster an understanding of individual labor market participation decisions. What insights, for example, do individual preferences for work hours provide for successful policy implementation if policy makers address topics such as the length of the work week, balance between work and family life or the need for more substantive part-time jobs? Likewise, what incentives might lead employers to reduce work hour mismatches? Despite their importance, these issues of work hour preferences and constraints have not yet been adequately considered in the overall debate on work time and labor market policy. Nor has attention been paid to a further pivotal question: how these restrictions affect workers´ health and well-being. To date, there are only a few studies that investigate the meaning of work hours constraints in the context of happiness and well-being in the work place. This thesis, therefore, constitutes the first study for Germany and the United Kingdom on the potential adverse health consequences of being constrained in the choice of number of work hours. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Dissertation ist es, ein umfassendes Bild der am Arbeitsmarkt angebotenen Arbeitsstunden zu zeichnen sowie das Ausmaß und die Determinanten von Arbeitsstundenrestriktionen zu untersuchen. Darüber hinaus zeigt die Arbeit mögliche Konsequenzen und politische Implikationen dieser Diskrepanz zwischen tatsächlicher und gewünschter Arbeitszeit auf und beleuchtet die Relevanz von Arbeitsstundenrestriktionen in Bezug auf eine sinnvolle und fundierte Arbeitszeitdebatte. Insbesondere wird die Frage analysiert, inwiefern individuelle Arbeitszeitpräferenzen und die Diskrepanz zwischen diesen und der tatsächlichen Arbeitszeit das Arbeitsangebotsverhalten und die Arbeitsmarktpartizipation beeinflussen. Welche Erkenntnisse können durch die Berücksichtigung individueller Arbeitszeitpräferenzen bezüglich der erfolgreichen Umsetzung einer Arbeitszeitpolitik gewonnen werden, wenn diese Politik eine bessere Vereinbarkeit von Beruf und Familie, einen erleichterten Berufseinstieg nach Elternzeit oder die Schaffung von (substantiellen) Teilzeitstellen zum Ziel hat? Welche Anreize könnten Unternehmen haben, Arbeitsstundenrestriktionen abzubauen? Eine weitere entscheidende Frage ist, ob und inwiefern sich Arbeitsstundenrestriktionen auf die Gesundheit und das Wohlbefinden der Arbeitnehmer auswirken. Bisher existieren nur wenige Studien, die die Bedeutung von Stundenrestriktionen im Zusammenhang mit der Lebenszufriedenheit und dem Wohlbefinden am Arbeitsplatz untersuchen. Die vorliegende Dissertation beinhaltet die erste Studie für Deutschland und das Vereinigte Königreich, die die potentiell negativen Auswirkungen von Arbeitsstundenrestriktionen auf die Gesundheit anhand repräsentativer Längsschnittdaten analysiert.

The issue of whether employees who work more hours than they want to suffer adverse health consequences is important not only at the individual level but also for governmental formation of work time policy. Our study investigates this question by analyzing the impact of the discrepancy between actual and desired work hours on self-perceived health outcomes in Germany and the United Kingdom. Based on nationally representative longitudinal data, our results show that work-hour mismatches (i.e., differences between actual and desired hours) have negative effects on workers´ health. In particular, we show that "overemployment" - working more hours than desired - has negative effects on different measures of self-perceived health.

This paper analyzes the discrepancy between actual and desired working hours in a multinational setting. Using the latest data of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) with a focus on work orientations hours constraints in 21 heterogeneous countries are analyzed. One major finding is that hours constraints are interrelated with macroeconomic variables such as (i) unemployment rates, (ii) GDP per capita as a measure of welfare, (iii) average weekly work hours, and (iv) income inequality. A subsequent multivariate analysis reveals that, on both macro- and microlevels, sociodemographic variables like prosperity and income, high risk of unemployment, and working conditions play an important role in determining working hours constraints. The results further suggest that, with respect to working conditions, such constraints are also affected by gender issues.

This study uses the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey covering the period 1991-2002 to investigate the extent of constraints on desired hours of work within jobs and the degree of flexibility of the labour market for a sample of women. Our main findings are as follows. First, the largest movements in hours worked are observed for workers who change their jobs. Second, about 40 percent of the women in the sample are not putting in the hours they would like. Most of them (mainly full-timers) would like to work fewer hours at the prevailing hourly wage. Again, women who change job experience the greatest hours changes, especially if they are over- or under-employed. Third, there is evidence of hours constraints. The hours movements among quitters are up to 5 hours greater than the movements among stayers. Fourth, we do not detect systematic time trends in the relationship between hours changes and job changes. But there is some evidence that overemployed women find it increasingly more difficult to move towards their desired hours even after changing job. Fifth, the evidence on a flexible labour market is mixed. We find only partial support for the hypothesis that overemployed or underemployed quitters receive compensating wage differentials if the new job does not satisfy their hours preferences, as well as for the hypothesis that quitters get a wage premium when they end up moving to jobs that constraint their desired hours.

This study uses the first twelve waves of the British Household Panel Survey covering the period 1991-2002 to investigate the extent of constraints on desired hours of work within jobs and the degree of flexibility of the labour market for a sample of women. Our main findings are as follows. First, the largest movements in hours worked are observed for workers who change their jobs. Second, about 40 percent of the women in the sample are not putting in the hours they would like. Most of them (mainly full-timers) would like to work fewer hours at the prevailing hourly wage. Again, women who change job experience the greatest hours changes, especially if they are over- or under-employed. Third, there is evidence of hours constraints. The hours movements among quitters are up to 5 hours greater than the movements among stayers. Fourth, we do not detect systematic time trends in the relationship between hours changes and job changes. But there is some evidence that overemployed women find it increasingly more difficult to move towards their desired hours even after changing job. Fifth, the evidence on a flexible labour market is mixed. We find only partial support for the hypothesis that overemployed or underemployed quitters receive compensating wage differentials if the new job does not satisfy their hours preferences, as well as for the hypothesis that quitters get a wage premium when they end up moving to jobs that constraint their desired hours.

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.

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.

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.