WP RR 15 - Employees' preferences for more or fewer working hours: The effects of usual, contractual and standard working time, family phase and household characteristics and job satisfaction

Abstract

This study seeks explanations for working time preferences, using cross-sectional multinomial logits for the 2001/2002 Wage Indicator dataset (N=21,727). As expected, the preferences are predominately influenced by working hours’ characteristics, showing that employees with long hours prefer to work shorter hours and that short-hours workers prefer longer hours. New is the finding that salaried employees indeed want to reduce hours whereas hourly paid employees prefer to work longer hours. In contrast to public opinion, female employees show a better fit between preferred and contractual hours compared to male employees. Particularly male employees whose children have left home prefer working fewer hours. The study further shows that wage rates have a large impact on working time preferences, the lowest earnings category preferring far more often longer hours. Regarding job characteristics, employees in a challenging job less often prefer fewer hours. The employees reporting conflicts at the workplace and insufficient staffing more often prefer fewer hours.