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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 Koenig (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))

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Eden, Maya (2021): Time Inseparable Labor Productivity and the Workweek. In: The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Jg. 123, H. 3, S. 940-965. DOI:10.1111/sjoe.12429

Abstract

"A centuries-old tradition, the week constitutes a coordination device that allows for temporal agglomeration in both production and leisure. But does it induce coordination on the optimal workweek? Central to this question is the nature of time-inseparability in labor productivity. Productivity is increasing in restfulness, which diminishes with work time, and in skill, which improves with work time. I show that, because skill accumulates and depreciates slowly, there are productivity gains from coordinating on a workweek with fewer but more frequent vacation days. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, Published by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons) ((en))

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Fitzroy, Felix & Jim Jin (2021): Some Welfare Economics of Working Time. (IZA discussion paper 14810), Bonn, 27 S.

Abstract

"Few skilled workers in the UK have flexible working time – GPs are the exception – most can only choose between unemployment, or full-time work, which has changed little in recent years, while part time work is mainly unskilled. This market rigidity imposes major welfare losses, in contrast to flexibility of worktime for all in the Netherlands, which has the best work-life balance. Stagnating real wages and rising employer market power and inequality follow declining unionisation, but a standard four-day week, tax reform, basic income, and flexibility rights for all could reverse these trends and provide major welfare gains." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Kolasa, Marcin, Michal Rubaszek & Małgorzata Walerych (2021): Do flexible working hours amplify or stabilize unemployment fluctuations? In: European Economic Review, Jg. 131. DOI:10.1016/j.euroecorev.2020.103605

Abstract

"In this paper we challenge the conventional view that increasing working time flexibility limits the amplitude of unemployment fluctuations. We start by showing that hours per worker in European countries are much less procyclical than in the US, and even co-move negatively with output in selected economies. This is confirmed by the results from a structural VAR model for the euro area, in which hours per worker increase after a contractionary monetary shock, exacerbating the upward pressure on unemployment. To understand these counterintuitive results, we develop a structural search and matching macroeconomic model with endogenous job separations that resemble layoffs. We show that this feature is key to generating a countercyclical response of hours per worker. When we augment the model with frictions in working hours adjustment and estimate it using euro area time series, we find that increasing flexibility of working time amplifies cyclical movements in unemployment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2021 Elsevier) ((en))

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Lambert, Susan J. & Anna Haley (2021): Implementing Work Scheduling Regulation: Compliance and Enforcement Challenges at the Local Level. In: ILR review, Jg. 74, H. 5, S. 1231-1257. DOI:10.1177/00197939211031227

Abstract

"Employment legislation intended to establish scheduling standards in hourly jobs is spreading across US cities. Yet the well-documented role that cost-focused business models play in shaping manager practices forecasts uneven compliance. Joining perspectives from labor and public policy studies, the authors examine variation in the organizational Arena - local workplaces - where implementation of scheduling regulation is set to play out. Analyses draw on surveys and interviews with 52 retail and food service managers on the eve of enactment of Seattle’s Secure Scheduling Ordinance. By capturing the full range of variation in managers’ scheduling practices prior to enactment, and their distance from legal compliance, the authors contribute unique insight into the prospects of establishing universal work hour standards in service industries and the varying pathways employers will likely pursue toward regulatory compliance. Findings suggest targets for enforcement and manager training and offer insight into the implementation challenges posed by municipal-level regulation." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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McKinnish, Terra (2021): Prevalence of Long Work Hours by Spouse’s Degree Field and the Labor Market Outcomes of Skilled Women. In: ILR review, Jg. 74, H. 4, S. 898-919. DOI:10.1177/0019793920901703

Abstract

"Using 2009 to 2015 American Community Survey (ACS) data, this article estimates the effect of the prevalence of long hours and short hours of work in a husband’s field of work, as defined by his undergraduate degree field, on the labor market outcomes of skilled married women. When individuals work in fields that require longer hours of work, their spouses experience spillover effects. The labor market outcomes of female spouses are more negatively affected than are those of male spouses. Specifically, female spouses face lower total earnings, hourly wages, employment options, and hours of work for married women with children relative to married men with children or married women without children. Little evidence supports the idea that the rate of short hours of work in a spouse’s degree field differentially affects married women with children." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Etienne Lalé (2020): The ins and outs of involuntary part-time employment. In: Labour Economics, Jg. 67. DOI:10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101940

Abstract

"We develop and implement a protocol to measure U.S. monthly time series of involuntary part-time employment stocks and flows from 1976 until today. Armed with these new data, we provide a comprehensive account of the cyclical dynamics of involuntary part-time work. We find that the recessionary increase in involuntary part-time employment is consistently driven by a jump in the transition probability from other employment states to involuntary part-time employment, and a drop in the reverse transition probability. We compare the dynamics of unemployment and involuntary part-time employment to argue that they reflect the operation of distinct labor-adjustment channels. While unemployment dynamics are driven by movements in job creation and destruction, the dynamics of involuntary part-time employment reflect changes in employers' labor utilization." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2021 Elsevier) ((en))

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Burger, Anna S. (2020): Extreme work hours in Western Europe and North America: diverging trends since the 1970s. In: Socio-economic review, Jg. 18, H. 4, S. 1065-1087. DOI:10.1093/ser/mwy020

Abstract

"This article presents a political economy analysis of extreme work hours in 18 advanced Western economies since the 1970s. Empirically, it shows that the culture of long work hours has gained significance not only in the Anglo-Saxon but also in most Continental European welfare states. Theoretically, it provides an institutionalist argument against the neoclassical, or supply-side, point of view on the drivers of long work hours in post-industrial labour markets. It demonstrates that the choice to work long hours is not entirely, or even mainly, left to the preference of the individual. Instead, individual choices are constrained by labour market policies, collective bargaining institutions and new labour market structures, the pattern and trends of which do not necessarily follow the contours of the regime typology. Data on extreme work hours was compiled from the Luxembourg Income Study and the Multinational Time Use Study micro-data collections." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

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Guisinger, Amy Y. (2020): Gender differences in the volatility of work hours and labor demand. In: Journal of macroeconomics, Jg. 66. DOI:10.1016/j.jmacro.2020.103254

Abstract

"This paper examines the role of heterogeneity in a real business cycle model, which traditionally has not fully captured the relative volatility of hours to output. Men and women have different cyclical volatilities in hours worked, which is robust to different filtering methods. This empirical regularity is used to motivate a standard RBC model augmented to allow for two different agents following Jaimovich et al. (2013). These two agents have identical utility functions, but face different elasticities of labor demand due to their different complementarities with capital. These estimated elasticities find that women are more complementary to capital. The calibrated model generates the cyclical volatility of work hours by gender and for the total hours worked that matches the U.S. data better than the traditional representative agent model. I then explore other extensions to this model including investigating the stability of the estimated labor demand elasticities and allowing for various Frisch elasticities of labor supply. This paper demonstrates that allowing for even broad levels of heterogeneity in a simple framework can increase the model’s tractability with the data. Since gender is important to explain U.S. business cycle dynamics, we need to carefully consider heterogeneity when analyzing counter-cyclical economic policy, as it may not have symmetric effects across assorted groups." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku, © 2020 Elsevier) ((en))