The green and digital transitions are increasingly described as the 'twin transition' in EU policy documents, social partners' strategic plans and academic debates. However, the exact meaning of this term remains ambiguous, and the interconnections between these transitions are largely...

This study examines the short-term effects of the introduction of a statutory minimum wage in Germany on hourly wages, monthly wages and paid working hours. We exploit a novel panel dataset by linking the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES) 2014 and the Earnings Survey (ES) 2015 and apply a...

The time Europeans devote to paid work has consistently decreased since the Industrial Revolution. However, since the 1980s, the pace of this trend has slowed. The aim of this article is twofold: first, we develop a theoretical framework to account for the main factors determining the evolution...

Working in the digital age requires a discussion on the right to disconnect. Although it has previously been studied in association with the digital transition movement, the "right to disconnect" has gained relevance in a context of mandatory teleworking due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This...

The aim of this study is to identify women's perceptions of the main reasons for discrimination at work. Furthermore, the aim is to analyse the effects of public working time policies on gender equality and their impact on discrimination at work and on women's career paths. This article presents...

The green and digital transitions are increasingly described as the 'twin transition' in EU policy documents, social partners' strategic plans and academic debates. However, the exact meaning of this term remains ambiguous, and the interconnections between these transitions are largely...

Standard economic models view labour supply decisions as individual utility maximisation balancing the trade-off between income and leisure. In contrast, we focus on the social context as a central determinant and analyse how colleagues' working hours shape individual working hours preferences....

This paper investigates how human capital concentration in cities is associated with working hours across different worker groups, an important but understudied dimension of urban agglomeration effects. Using microdata from the American Community Survey covering 240 metropolitan statistical...

This paper models fair workweek regulations that require employers to provide employees with (1) schedule predictability via advance notice of their work schedule and premium payments for short-notice changes, and (2) access to hours meaning they must offer open hours to existing employees...

This article explores how an employee's choice to work from home (WFH) influences his or her spouse's outcomes. Drawing on the specific features of the French institutions, we show that a spouse's switch to WFH leads to a sharp increase in the probability that his or her partner will also switch...

Understanding the determinants of worker effort is central, as even small changes in productivity can have significant implications for economic growth and labor market performance. This study examines the relationship between extreme temperatures and work effort-proxied by non-work time while...

In December 2024, Spain's government reached an agreement with the country's major trade unions to reduce the standard workweek to 37.5 hours without wage cuts by the end of 2025. This paper provides an ex-ante assessment of the proposed reform using EUROLAB, a discrete choice labour supply...

Im Koalitionsvertrag der 21. Legislaturperiode planen die Regierungsparteien CDU, CSU und SPD mehr Flexibilität bei der Gestaltung von Arbeitszeiten im Einklang mit der europäischen Arbeitszeitrichtlinie. Dabei geht es mit dem geplanten Wechsel von einer Tages- hin zur Wochenhöchstarbeitszeit...

Many employees work more than they would prefer. This paper examines whether social comparisons contribute to this mismatch by inducing individuals to prioritize income over leisure. I use a within-subject survey experiment with university students in which participants repeatedly choose between...

Although more than 20 per cent of the workforce changes their occupation every year, we still do not fully understand the mechanisms behind the observed mobility. This paper focuses on analysing the relationship between work-hour instability and occupational mobility in the US labour market. I...

Aging populations in Asia are worried that they are facing a "care crisis," with many older people in need of care having no one to care for them. However, we do not have a clear picture of current care patterns: How much care is currently being consumed? Who is providing that care? Are women...

This paper describes a novel method for the comparative estimation of long-term care needs, care arrangements and care gaps. Our approach generalizes an Austrian administrative procedure for the assessment of care needs and uses data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe...

Die Forderung nach einer Work-Life-Balance und der spürbare Arbeitskräftemangel haben die öffentliche Diskussion um Arbeitszeitveränderungen verstärkt. Kann sich die Gesellschaft eine allgemeine Absenkung der Arbeitszeit leisten oder sind vielmehr längere Arbeitszeiten vonnöten? Die...

In a study of recent minimum wage changes (Clemens and Strain, forthcoming), we demonstrate how analyses of longer-run impacts of policy interventions can be pre-specified as extensions to very short-run analyses. This paper uses this novel methodology to study the effects of minimum wage...

By launching this consultation, the Eurosystem is taking the first step towards a possible future extension to the operating hours of its T2 system. Although the operating hours of the Eurosystem's real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system (T2) were already extended in 2023, the growing...

Men at the bottom quintile of the German male earnings distribution had lower average earnings in 2019 than in 2001. In contrast, female earnings have increased throughout the distribution. What explains these diverging trends and how did they translate into changes in net income? Data from the...

How has the distribution of unpaid working time between men and women evolved over the last twenty years? Does unpaid working time still disproportionately affect women, more than fifty years after the massive entry of the female labour force into formal employment? And, if so, which market and...

We estimate the effect of sleep on labor productivity addressing the two main challenges in time use research: the unavoidable substitutions among activities implied by the time budget constraint and the endogeneity of the allocation of time. We use complete time diary data to identify the...

Despite the importance of regulating working hours for workers' health and maintaining labour productivity, the literature lacks credible causal estimates on the impact of reduced working hours. We provide new evidence for the causal effect of shorter workweeks on mortality using full population...

This study examines optimal government redistribution in a Mirrleesian framework, accounting for a negative effect of longer working hours on productivity. A government ignoring this effect perceives labor supply as insufficient and sets lower marginal income taxes to encourage work. In...

The concept of a four-day workweek (4DWW) has gained traction as organisations explore ways to improve employee well-being and productivity. This study investigates the opportunities, challenges, and perceived feasibility of adopting a 4DWW in the UK, from the perspective of employees on...

Child penalties in paid working hours are persistent and widen the gender earnings gap. This paper studies an important mechanism through which working hours are affected: peer effects. Using three unique layers of peer networks: neighbours, colleagues, and family, we analyse peer effects on...

Using data from the French Labor Force Survey, we show that 21.2% of workers experience an hours gap, meaning they work fewer hours than they would prefer at their current wage. This stands in sharp contrast to recent evidence from Germany, where most workers report being overworked. In France,...