What explains how much people work? Going back in time, a main fact to address is the steady reduction in hours worked. The long-run data, for the U.S. as well as for other countries, show a striking pattern whereby hours worked fall steadily by a little below a half of a percent per year,...

What explains how much people work? Going back in time, a main fact to address is the steady reduction in hours worked. The long-run data, for the U.S. as well as for other countries, show a striking pattern whereby hours worked fall steadily by a little below a half of a percent per year,...

Individuals' estimates of their paid working hours in response to the Current Population Survey (CPS) are biased upward. The bias is demonstrated here using two independent alternative sources of work-hour estimates: time-diary studies and the BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey,...

This research explores the relationship between three different dimensions of work hours with individuals’ reported level of happiness — its duration, mismatch with preferences and flexibility over its timing. Using pooled data from the US General Social Survey (1972-2012) and two of its...

Work hours mismatches among the employed are common. About 7 percent prefer fewer than their current work hours even if it means less income, while another 25 percent want more hours and income, virtually the same as in 1985. Overemployment is higher for women, whites, married, parents of young...

We examine patterns of work in the U.S. from 1973-2018 with the novel focus on days per week, using intermittent CPS samples and one ATUS sample. Among full-time workers the incidence of four-day work tripled during this period, with over 8 million more full-time workers on four-day weeks. The...