Who is Working When? - Working Time Arrangments of Self-Employed and Employees : A Microeconometric Analysis of German Time Use Data

In recent years new patterns of working time have appeared along with an increased flexibility concerning timing of work and the decay of the regular working day. We analyze the timing of working time for both self-employed and employees based on the German time budget study 1991/92. In the first step we systematise different courses of the working day. Thereby, four categories of working time patterns emerged. After that the question is raised if differences between self-employed and employees can be found concerning their daily working times. After a descriptive analysis of the categories a multinomial logit model is employed in order to find out if the occupational background of a person can be used to explain the decision which working time pattern to choose. We control for variables stemming from human capital theory led explanations from ‚new home economics’ and from time use research. It can be shown that particularly self-employed without any employee tend to work at non-core times such as early in the morning and/or late in the evening or in multiple episodes with at least one longer interruption