December 1, 1996 Portugal introduced a new law on working hours which gradually reduced the standard workweek from 44 hours to 40 hours. We study how this mandatory working hours reduction affected employment and earnings of workers involved. We find for workers who were affected by the new law that working hours decreased, while hourly wages increased, keeping monthly earnings approximately constant. We also find that the working hours reduction did not lead to an increased job loss of workers directly affected. Finally, we find that workers who themselves were not directly affected were influenced by the working hours reduction indirectly. If they worked in a firm with many workers working more than 40 hours before the change in law was introduced.
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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number
3723.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Kapteyn, Arie & Kalwij, Adriaan S. & Zaidi, Asghar, 2000.
"The Myth of Worksharing,"
IZA Discussion Papers
188, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Kapteyn, A. & Kalwij, A. & Zaidi, A., 2000.
"The myth of worksharing,"
Discussion Paper
23, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
[Downloadable!]