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The Effect of Working Hours on Health

Author

Listed:
  • Inés Berniell

    (Department of Economics, Universidad Nacional de La Plata)

  • Jan Bietenbeck

    (Department of Economics, Lund University)

Abstract

Does working time causally affect workers' health? We study this question in the context of a French reform which reduced the standard workweek from 39 to 35 hours, at constant earnings. Our empirical analysis exploits variation in the adoption of this shorter workweek across employers, which is mainly driven by institutional features of the reform and thus arguably exogenous to workers' health. Difference-in-differences and lagged dependent variable regressions reveal a positive effect of working hours on smoking and a negative effect on self-reported health. Results are robust to accounting for endogenous job mobility and differ by workers' occupations.

Suggested Citation

  • Inés Berniell & Jan Bietenbeck, 2017. "The Effect of Working Hours on Health," CINCH Working Paper Series 1703, Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Competent in Competition and Health.
    • Handle: RePEc:duh:wpaper:1703
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Working Hours; Health; Smoking; BMI;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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