Working time patterns in New Zealand in the 1990s

This article uses data from the New Zealand Time Use Survey 1999 to analyse the scheduling of paid work across the day and week. It provides new quantitative measures of the amount of paid work that is undertaken at standard and non-standard times (such as evenings, nights and weekends). While approximately three-quarters of working hours are performed during conventional business hours, the majority of workers carry out at least a few of their hours of work outside these core hours. Participation patterns do not provide strong support for the hypothesis that lower skilled workers are over-represented amongst those who are at work at socially undesirable times. However, more highly skilled workers perform a higher proportion of their evening and weekend work from their own homes, suggesting that they enjoy a greater level of control over the timing and location of such work.