IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/iza/izawol/journly2015n216.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Employment effects of longer working hours

Author

Listed:
  • Thorsten Schank

    (Johannes Gutenberg University, and IZA, Germany)

Abstract

Standard hours, a major component of total work hours, vary considerably across Europe. Many countries lowered their standard work hours during the 1980s and 1990s, attempting to boost employment by splitting up a fixed number of worker-hours among more workers. Germany has seen a partial reversal of the trend as several companies increased their standard hours to reduce their labor costs in the early 2000s. The employment effect of increased standard hours depends on the time horizon examined, how wages respond, whether employees collected overtime pay before the change, and the productivity of hours worked, among other factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Thorsten Schank, 2015. "Employment effects of longer working hours," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 216-216, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:y:2015:n:216
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wol.iza.org/articles/employment-effects-of-longer-working-hours-1.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://wol.iza.org/articles/employment-effects-of-longer-working-hours
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Hunt, 1999. "Has Work-Sharing Worked in Germany?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 117-148.
    2. Hart,Robert A., 2004. "The Economics of Overtime Working," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521801423.
    3. Pierre Cahuc & André Zylberberg, 2004. "Labor Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026203316x, December.
    4. Trejo, Stephen J, 1991. "The Effects of Overtime Pay Regulation on Worker Compensation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 719-740, September.
    5. Lührmann, Melanie & Weiss, Matthias, 2010. "The effect of working time and labor force participation on unemployment: A new argument in an old debate," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 67-82, January.
    6. Martyn Andrews & Hans-Dieter Gerner & Thorsten Schank & Richard Upward, 2015. "More hours, more jobs? The employment effects of longer working hours," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 245-268.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1oclgdahv988ioh9b24346gvge is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pedro S. Martins, 2016. "Can overtime premium flexibility promote employment? Firm-and worker-level evidence from a labour law reform," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp607, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    2. Martins, Pedro S., 2017. "Economic effects of overtime premium flexibility: Firm- and worker-level evidence from a law reform," GLO Discussion Paper Series 102, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ronald L. Oaxaca & Galiya Sagyndykova, 2020. "The effect of overtime regulations on employment," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-89, December.
    2. Kawaguchi, Daiji & Lee, Jungmin & Hamermesh, Daniel S., 2013. "A gift of time," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 205-216.
    3. Schank, Thorsten & Schnabel, Claus, 2004. "Betriebliche Determinanten des Überstundeneinsatzes," Discussion Papers 24, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    4. Pedro S. Martins, 2016. "Can overtime premium flexibility promote employment? Firm-and worker-level evidence from a labour law reform," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp607, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    5. Kawaguchi, Daiji & Naito, Hisahiro & Yokoyama, Izumi, 2017. "Assessing the effects of reducing standard hours: Regression discontinuity evidence from Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 59-76.
    6. Martins, Pedro S., 2017. "Economic effects of overtime premium flexibility: Firm- and worker-level evidence from a law reform," GLO Discussion Paper Series 102, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Quach, Simon, 2020. "The Labor Market Effects of Expanding Overtime Coverage," MPRA Paper 100613, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Christine Jolls, 2007. "Employment Law and the Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 13230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Stéphane Carcillo & Alexander Hijzen & Stefan Thewissen, 2024. "The limitations of overtime limits to reduce long working hours: Evidence from the 2018 to 2021 working time reform in Korea," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 98-126, March.
    10. Friesen, Jane, 2001. "Overtime pay regulation and weekly hours of work in Canada," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 691-720, December.
    11. Markus Pannenberg, 2005. "Long‐Term Effects Of Unpaid Overtime," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(2), pages 177-193, May.
    12. Rafael Gralla & Kornelius Kraft & Stanislav Volgushev, 2017. "The effects of works councils on overtime hours," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 64(2), pages 143-168, May.
    13. Pierre Cahuc & André Zylberberg, 2008. "Reduction of working time and unemployment," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00255770, HAL.
    14. Kentaro Asai, 2022. "Working Hour Reform, Labor Demand and Productivity," PSE Working Papers halshs-03728157, HAL.
    15. Kalwig, A.S. & Gregory, M., 2000. "Overtime Hours in Great Britain Over the Period 1975-1999: A panel Data Analysis," Economics Series Working Papers 9927, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    16. S. Erbaş & Chera Sayers, 2001. "Can a Shorter Workweek Induce Higher Employment? Mandatory Reductions in the Workweek and Employment Subsidies," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(4), pages 485-509, August.
    17. Bruno Crepon & Francis Kramarz, 2002. "Employed 40 Hours or Not Employed 39: Lessons from the 1982 Mandatory Reduction of the Workweek," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(6), pages 1355-1389, December.
    18. PETER McADAM & ALPO WILLMAN, 2013. "Technology, Utilization, and Inflation: What Drives the New Keynesian Phillips Curve?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(8), pages 1547-1579, December.
    19. Lührmann, Melanie & Weiss, Matthias, 2010. "The effect of working time and labor force participation on unemployment: A new argument in an old debate," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 67-82, January.
    20. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Kawaguchi, Daiji & Lee, Jungmin, 2017. "Does labor legislation benefit workers? Well-being after an hours reduction," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    labor demand; standard hours;

    JEL classification:

    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J81 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Working Conditions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izawol:journl:y:2015:n:216. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.