Using several waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), this study analyzes the effect of long work hours on health and lifestyles in a sample of 18- to 65-year-old Chinese workers. Although working long hours does significantly increase the probabilities of high blood pressure and...

December 1, 1996 Portugal introduced a new law on working hours which gradually reduced the standard workweek from 44 hours to 40 hours. We study how this mandatory working hours reduction affected employment and earnings of workers involved. We find for workers who were affected by the new law...

This paper looks at the wage effects of perceived and objective insecurity in Germany and the UK using the GSOEP and BHPS panels. The distinction between perceived worry about job loss and economic indicators such as regional unemployment rates and the share of temporary contracts is...

Job quality may usefully be thought of as depending on both job values (how much workers care about different job outcomes) and the job outcomes themselves. Here both crosssection and panel data are used to examine changes in job quality in OECD countries over the 1990s. Despite rising wages and...

In this paper we analyze the endogenous determination of migration quota viewing it as an outcome of a two-stage political struggle between two interest groups: those in favor and those against the proposed migration quota. We first compare the proposed policies of the two interest groups under...

Risk-averse job seekers fearing the scarring effect of unemployment meet vacancies offering contractual employment protection (CEP) in form of guaranteed employment (GEC) or severance pay contracts (SPC). A GEC fully eliminates both the income risk and the scarring risk of unemployment. SPC...

This paper uses establishment data to estimate the determinants of using agency workers. It contends that those employers with less ability to direct effort of core workers are more likely to use agency workers to meet uncertain labor demand. Family friendly practices are viewed as either...

High performance workplaces elicit greater involvement and productivity from employees but past theory and evidence remain divided on whether or not such workplaces are compatible with family friendly work practices. We present new evidence on the association using perceptions of a...

This paper examines the reasons behind the low rates of participation in old age pension programs in developing countries. Using a large set of harmonized household surveys from Latin America we assess how much of the low participation can be explained by involuntary rationing out of jobs with...

Perhaps no other country in recent years has witnessed greater change in its collective bargaining framework than the UK. This paper describes the dramatic developments and their consequences. Like Gaul, it is in three parts. The first part charts the six major pieces of legislation -...