Labour market dynamics according the individual working hour tension (preferred working
hours minus actual working hours) of active people with focus on the self-employed, as
professions and entrepreneurs, and employees are investigated in our study. The individual
longitudinal analysis based on panel data allows us to follow the individual process of
working time preferences and actual outcomes in its individual convergence/divergence
balancing process in the course of time. Our microanalytic and paneleconometric results (with
pooled, one and two factor fixed and random effects models) quantify the working hour
tension developments and its determinants in a decade from the mid 80s to the mid 90s.
Microdata base is the German Socio-Economic Panel with ten waves from 1985 to 1994.
Finally, we discuss impacts of our results for labour market strategies and a targeted
economic and social policy