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Should Friday be the New Saturday? Hours Worked and Hours Wanted

Author

Listed:
  • Gregor Jarosch
  • Laura Pilossoph
  • Anthony Swaminathan

Abstract

This paper investigates self-reported wedges between how much people work and how much they want to work, at their current wage. More than two-thirds of full-time workers in German survey data are overworked—actual hours exceed desired hours. We combine this evidence with a simple model of labor supply to assess the welfare consequences of tighter weekly hours limits via willingness-to-pay calculations. According to counterfactuals, the optimal length of the workweek in Germany is 37 hours. Introducing such a cap would raise welfare by .8-1.6% of GDP. The gains from a shortened workweek are largest for workers who are married, female, white collar, middle aged, and high income. An extended analysis integrates a non-constant wage-hours relationship, falling capital returns, and a shrinking tax base.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregor Jarosch & Laura Pilossoph & Anthony Swaminathan, 2025. "Should Friday be the New Saturday? Hours Worked and Hours Wanted," NBER Working Papers 33577, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33577
    Note: EFG LS
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General
    • H0 - Public Economics - - General
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General

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