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Borjas, George J. & Daniel S. Hamermesh (2024): The Mismeasurement of Work Time: Implications for Wage Discrimination and Inequality. (NBER working paper / National Bureau of Economic Research 32025), Cambridge, Mass, 44 S.

Abstract

"Comparing measures of work time in the recall CPS-ASEC data with contemporaneous measures reveals many logical inconsistencies and probable errors. About 8 percent of ASEC respondents report weeks worked last year that contradict their current work histories in the Basic monthly interviews; the error rate is over 50 percent among workers who move in and out of the workforce. Over 20 percent give contradictory information about whether they usually work a full-time weekly schedule. Part of the inconsistency arises because an increasing fraction of ASEC respondents (over 20 percent by 2018) consists of people whose record was fully imputed. The levels and trends of the errors differ by gender and race, and they affect measured wage differentials between 1978 to 2018. Adjusting for the errors and imputations, gender wage gaps among all workers narrowed by 4 log points more than is commonly reported, and residual wage inequality decreased by 6 log points more. In a very carefully defined sample of full-time year-round workers, gender and racial wage differentials narrowed slightly less than previously estimated using ASEC data, but much more than indicated by commonly used estimates from CPS Outgoing Rotation Groups." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Cai, Julie (2024): Work Hours Volatility and Child Poverty: The Potential Mitigating Role of Safety Net Programs. In: Social forces, Jg. 102, H. 3, S. 902-925. DOI:10.1093/sf/soad109

Abstract

"Despite established links among persistent unemployment, low wages, and children’s economic well-being, social scientists have yet to document how variability in work hours is linked to child poverty. Our knowledge of the safety net’s heterogeneous responses to work-hour instability is also limited. This is of critical importance for scholars and policymakers. Using nationally representative data collected every 4 months, this paper examines how intra-year work-hour volatility is related to child poverty, measured through both the official poverty measure (OPM) and the supplemental poverty measure (SPM). It further assesses varying degrees of buffering effects of cash, in-kind benefits, and tax transfers on income in the context of work-hour volatility. Results indicate that more than one in four households (26%) facing the greatest volatility lived under the poverty line. Black and Hispanic children, as well as those living with unpartnered single mothers, faced substantially higher variability in household market hours worked. Hispanic children experienced not only greater volatility in their caregivers’ work hours but also higher poverty level, even after taking government programs into account. In-kind benefits are more effective in buffering household income declines resulting from unstable work hours, followed by tax transfers and cash benefits. The effectiveness of near-cash benefits is particularly salient among Black children and children of single mothers. These results provide new evidence to inform policy discussions surrounding the best ways to help socioeconomically disadvantaged families to retain benefits and smooth their income in the face of frequent variation in work hours and, thus, earnings." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Cho, Hyojin, Susan J. Lambert, Emily Ellis & Julia R. Henly (2024): How Work Hour Variability Matters for Work-to-Family Conflict. In: Work, Employment and Society online erschienen am 09.01.2024, S. 1-25. DOI:10.1177/09500170231218191

Abstract

"Variable work hours are an understudied source of work-to-family conflict (WFC). We examine the relationships between the magnitude and direction of work hour variability and WFC and whether work hour control and schedule predictability moderate these relationships. We estimate a series of linear regressions using the 2016 US General Social Survey, examining women and men workers separately and together. Findings indicate that as the magnitude of work hour variability increases, so does WFC, controlling for the usual number of hours worked. Work hour control helps to protect workers, especially women, from WFC when work hour variability is high and hours surge. Although schedule predictability tempers the relationship between work hour variability and WFC, its potency diminishes as variability increases. Our study emphasizes the potential benefit to workers and families of government policies and employer practices that promote work hour stability, schedule predictability, and equity in employee work hour control." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Cotofan, Maria & Konstantinos Matakos (2023): Adapting or compounding? The effects of recurring labour shocks on stated and revealed preferences for redistribution. (CEP discussion paper / Centre for Economic Performance 1957), London, 34 S.

Abstract

"The evidence on the impact of employment shocks on preferences for redistribution is mixed on stated outcomes and sparse on revealed ones. We conduct a survey of US workers to measure the impact of repeated labour market shocks on both stated and revealed redistributive preferences. We measure the former by support on seven different policies and the latter through donations. We look at experiences of both mild shocks (having to reduce working hours) and hard shocks (unemployment), as well as past unemployment during formative years. We find evidence of adaptation to unemployment on policy preferences and compounding for milder shocks on donations, suggesting that the effects of repeated shocks on preferences for redistribution are not independent. Our results show that unemployment impacts preferences in a self-interested way, while milder shocks lead to broader support for redistribution." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Elvery, Joel A., C. Lockwood Reynolds & Shawn M. Rohlin (2023): Employer Wage Subsidy Caps and Part-Time Work. In: ILR review, Jg. 76, H. 1, S. 189-209. DOI:10.1177/00197939221102865

Abstract

"Using tract-level US Census data and triple-difference estimators, the authors test whether firms increase their use of part-time workers when faced with capped wage subsidies. By limiting the maximum subsidy per worker, such subsidies create incentives for firms to increase the share of their payroll that is eligible for the subsidy by increasing use of part-time or low-wage workers. Results suggest that firms located in federal Empowerment Zones in the United States responded to the program’s capped wage subsidies by expanding their use of part-time workers, particularly in locations where the subsidy cap is likely to bind. Results also show a shift toward hiring lower-skill workers." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Fan, Wen, Juliet Schor, Orla Kelly & Guolin Gu (2023): Does work time reduction improve workers' well-being? Evidence from global four-day workweek trials. (SocArXiv papers), 46 S. DOI:10.31235/osf.io/7ucy9

Abstract

"Time spent on the job is a fundamental aspect of working conditions that influences many aspects of individuals’ lives. In this ground-breaking research, we study how an organization-wide four-day workweek Intervention - with no reduction in pay - affects workers’ well-being. Participating organizations undergo pre-trial work reorganisation to improve efficiency and collaboration, followed by a six-month four-day workweek trial. Based on data collected from 2,134 employees in 123 organizations before and after the trial, we find that the trial leads to improvements in multiple measures of subjective well-being, including burnout, job satisfaction, positive affect, mental health, and physical health. Larger reductions in individuals' weekly hours predict greater gains in well-being outcomes. Mediation analysis indicates that three factors significantly contribute to the relationship between reduced working hours and increased well-being: improvements in self-reported work ability, reductions in sleep problems, and decreased levels of fatigue." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Gihleb, Rania, Osea Giuntella & Jian Qi Tan (2023): The Impact of Right-to-Work Laws on Long Hours and Work Schedules. (IZA discussion paper / Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit 16588), Bonn, 59 S.

Abstract

"Unions play a crucial role in determining wages and employment outcomes. However, union bargaining power may also have important effects on non-pecuniary working conditions. We study the effects of right-to-work laws, which removed agency shop protection and weakened union powers on long hours and non-standard work schedules that may adversely affect workers' health and safety. We exploit variation in the timing of enactment across US states and compare workers in bordering counties across adopting states and states that did not adopt the laws yet. Using the stacked approach to difference-in-differences estimates proposed by Cengiz et al. (2019), we find evidence that right-to-work laws increased the share of workers working long hours by 6%, while there is little evidence of an impact on hourly wages. The effects on long hours are larger in more unionized sectors (i.e. construction, manufacturing, and transportation). While the likelihood of working non-standard hours increases for particular sectors (education and public administration), there is no evidence of a significant increase in the overall sample." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Lachowska, Marta, Alexandre Mas, Raffaele Saggio & Stephen A. Woodbury (2023): Work Hours Mismatch. (NBER working paper / National Bureau of Economic Research 31205), Cambridge, Mass, 94 S.

Abstract

"This paper uses a revealed preference approach applied to administrative data from Washington to document and characterize work-hour constraints. Workers have limited discretion over hours at a given employer, and there is substantial mismatch between workers who prefer long hours and employers that provide short hours. Voluntary job transitions suggest that the ratio of the marginal rate of substitution of earnings for hours (MRS) to the wage rate is on the order of 0.5-0.6 for prime-age workers. The average absolute deviation between observed hours and optimal hours is about 15%, and constraints on hours are particularly acute among low-wage workers. On average, observed hours tend to be less than preferred levels, and workers would require a 12% higher wage with their current employer to be as well off as they would be after moving to an employer offering ideal hours. These findings suggest that hours constraints are an equilibrium feature of the labor market because long-hour jobs are costly to employers, and that employers offer high-wage/long-hour packages to increase their overall value of employment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Lee, Dain, Jinhyeok Park & Yongseok Shin (2023): Where Are the Workers? From Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting. (NBER working paper / National Bureau of Economic Research 30833), Cambridge, Mass, 19 S.

Abstract

"To better understand the tight post-pandemic labor market in the US, we decompose the decline in aggregate hours worked into the extensive (fewer people working) and the intensive margin changes (workers working fewer hours). Although the pre-existing trend of lower labor force participation especially by young men without a bachelor's degree accounts for some of the decline in aggregate hours, the intensive margin accounts for more than half of the decline between 2019 and 2022. The decline in hours among workers was larger for men than women. Among men, the decline was larger for those with a bachelor's degree than those with less education, for prime-age workers than older workers, and also for those who already worked long hours and had high earnings. Workers' hours reduction can explain why the labor market is even tighter than what is expected at the current levels of unemployment and labor force participation." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Pabilonia, Sabrina Wulff & Victoria Vernon (2023): Remote Work, Wages, and Hours Worked in the United States. (IZA discussion paper / Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit 16420), Bonn, 48 S.

Abstract

"Remote wage employment gradually increased in the United States during the four decades prior to the pandemic, then surged in 2020 due to social distancing policies implemented to stem the spread of COVID-19. Using the 2010–2021 American Community Survey, the authors examine trends in wage and hours differentials for full-time remote workers and office-based workers as well as within occupation differences in wage growth by work location. Throughout the period, remote workers earned higher wages than those working on-site, and the difference increased sharply during the pandemic. Real wages grew 4.4 percent faster for remote workers within detailed occupation groups and remote work intensity was positively associated with wage growth across occupations. Before the pandemic, remote workers worked substantially longer hours per week than on-site workers, but by 2021, hours were similar." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Paek, Eunjeong (2023): Workplace computerization and inequality in schedule control. In: Social science research, Jg. 116. DOI:10.1016/j.ssresearch.2023.102939

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Behringer, Jan, Martin Gonzalez Granda & Till van Treeck (2022): Varieties of the rat race: Working hours in the age of abundance. (ifso working paper 17), Duisburg, 33 S.

Abstract

"We ask why working hours in the rich world have not declined more sharply or even risen at times since the early 1980s, despite a steady increase in productivity, and why they vary so much across rich countries. We use an internationally comparable database on working hours (Bick et al., 2019) and conduct panel data estimations for a sample of 17 European countries and the United States over the period 1983-2019. We find that high or increasing top-end income inequality, decentralized labor relations, and limited government provision of education and other in-kind services contribute to long working hours. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that upward-looking status comparisons in positional consumption ("Veblen effects") contribute to a "rat race" of long working hours that is more or less pronounced in different varieties of capitalism." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Bick, Alexander, Adam Blandin & Richard Rogerson (2022): Hours and Wages. In: The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Jg. 137, H. 3, S. 1901-1962. DOI:10.1093/qje/qjac005

Abstract

"We document two robust features of the cross-sectional distribution of usual weekly hours and hourly wages. First, usual weekly hours are heavily concentrated around 40 hours, while at the same time a substantial share of total hours come from individuals who work more than 50 hours. Second, mean hourly wages are nonmonotonic across the usual hours distribution, with a peak at 50 hours. We develop and estimate a model of labor supply to account for these features. The novel feature of our model is that earnings are nonlinear in hours, with the extent of nonlinearity varying over the hours distribution. Our estimates imply significant wage penalties for people who deviate from 40 hours in either direction, leading to a large mass of people who work 40 hours and are not very responsive to shocks. This has important implications for the role of labor supply as a mechanism for self-insurance in a standard heterogeneous-agent incomplete-markets model and for empirical strategies designed to estimate labor supply parameters." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Del Rey, Elena, Joaquín Naval & Jose I. Silva (2022): Hours and wages: A bargaining approach. In: Economics Letters, Jg. 217. DOI:10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110652

Abstract

"In a recent paper, Bick et al. (2022) show the presence of a hump-shaped relationship between hours and hourly wages with a maximum around 50 h worked. We show that a model with fixed labor costs where workers and firms bargain in wages and hours can help explain this non-linear relationship. Also, a quantitative version of the model is able to match the empirical hourly-wage to hours worked relationship estimated by those authors for the US." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2022 Elsevier) ((en))

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Florio, Erminia & Aicha Kharazi (2022): Curtailment of Economic Activity and Labor Inequalities. (GLO discussion paper / Global Labor Organization 1166), Essen, 50 S.

Abstract

"The worrying combination of the labor market tightness and the wage inflation in the US since the pandemic raises a question on how the business closure orders affected the fragile segments of the labor force and contributed to mounting inflationary wage pressure. We develop a macroeconomic model with heterogeneous labor and a nested CES production function. We estimate the model using the newly collected data from the CPS and the BEA. The recent crisis leads to a contraction in total hours worked, makes wages more volatile, and sustains wage inflation. The model also generates differential effects of the business closure orders on productivity and the labor market in the US. The earning rates and hours responses to the crisis differ by age, skills, and origin of the worker." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Flüter-Hoffmann, Christiane & Oliver Stettes (2022): Homeoffice nach fast zwei Jahren Pandemie. Ein Rück- und Ausblick über die Verbreitung und Struktur der räumlichen und zeitlichen Flexibilisierung von Arbeit in Deutschland, Europa und den USA. (IW-Report / Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft Köln 2022,02), Köln, 56 S.

Abstract

"Die hier vorliegende Studie zeigt einen Rück- und Ausblick über die Verbreitung und Struktur der räumlichen und zeitlichen Flexibilisierung von Arbeit in Deutschland, Europa und den USA." (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku)

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Lachowska, Marta, Alexandre Mas & Stephen A. Woodbury (2022): How Reliable are Administrative Reports of Paid Work Hours? (Upjohn Institute working paper 361), Kalamazoo, Mich., 49 S. DOI:10.17848/wp22-361

Abstract

"This paper examines the quality of quarterly records on work hours collected from employers in the State of Washington to administer the unemployment insurance (UI) system, specifically to determine eligibility for UI. We subject the administrative records to four “trials,” all of which suggest the records reliably measure paid hours of work. First, distributions of hours in the administrative records and Current Population Survey outgoing rotation groups (CPS) both suggest that 52–54% of workers work approximately 40 hours per week. Second, in the administrative records, quarter-to-quarter changes in the log of earnings are highly correlated with quarter-to-quarter changes in the log of paid hours. Third, annual changes in Washington’s minimum wage rate (which is indexed) are clearly reflected in year-to-year changes in the distribution of paid hours in the administrative data. Fourth, Mincer-style wage rate and earnings regressions using the administrative data produce estimates similar to those found elsewhere in the literature." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Landivar, Liana Christin, Rose A. Woods & Gretchen M. Livingston (2022): Does part-time work offer flexibility to employed mothers? In: Monthly labor review H. February. DOI:10.21916/mlr.2022.7

Abstract

"Using data from the 2017-18 American Time Use Survey Leave and Job Flexibilities Module, we evaluate the relationship between part-time work and job flexibility among civilian employed mothers who are wage and salary workers. Results show that mothers working part time are employed in jobs that lack many of the attributes that would characterize these jobs as flexible. Mothers in part-time jobs were less likely to have paid leave, work-at-home access, and advanced schedule notice. Although part-time jobs require fewer work hours, these shorter work hours may come at a cost of reduced flexibility, pay, and availability of family-friendly benefits." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Mertehikian, Yasmin A. & Pilar Gonalons-Pons (2022): Work and Family Disadvantage: Determinants of Gender Gaps in Paid Work During the COVID-19 Pandemic. In: Socius, Jg. 8, S. 1-12. DOI:10.1177/23780231221117649

Abstract

"This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the increase in gender inequality in paid work during the pandemic to unpack the relative relevance of labor market and work-family conflict processes. Using panel data from the United States Current Population Survey, we examine four mechanisms in an integrated analysis that explicitly includes single-parent households and assesses the moderating role of women’s economic position relative to their partners. The results indicate that increases in gender inequality during the pandemic were heavily concentrated in households with children but also partly connected to gender differences in prepandemic labor market positions and to the higher prevalence of women in lower earner position relative to their partners. Single parents were more negatively impacted than partnered parents, but the disproportionate concentration of this impact on women does not contribute much to increases in overall gender inequality due to the relatively smaller size of this group." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Anelli, Massimo & Felix König (2021): Willingness to Pay for Workplace Safety. (CESifo working paper 9469), München, 59 S.

Abstract

"This paper develops a revealed-preference approach that uses budget constrain discontinuities to price workplace safety. We track hourly workers who face the decision of how many hours to work at varying levels of Covid-19 risk and leverage state-specific discontinuities in unemployment insurance eligibility criteria to identify the labor supply behavior. Results show large baseline responses at the threshold and increasing responses for higher health risks. The observed behavior implies that workers are willing to accept 34% lower incomes to reduce the fatality rate by one standard deviation, or 1% of income for a one in a million chance of dying." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))