Flexible work schedules and telecommuting may help to improve the combination of work and family. This is arguably most important in households with (young) children. An open question is whether job flexibility can increase the well-being of the children, which depends, in part, on the time...

We leverage U.S. county-day temperature variation combined with daily time use data to examine the effect of temperature on the timing of work. We find that warmer (colder) temperatures increase (decrease) working time during the night and decrease (increase) working time in the morning. These...

We propose an explanation of why Europeans choose to work fewer hours than Americans and also suffer higher rates of unemployment. Labor market regulations, unemployment benefits, and high levels of public consumption in many European countries reduce, ceteris paribus, the gains from being...

In this paper we study the effects on the survival rate in employment of a scheme that facilitates gradual retirement through working time reductions. We use information on the entire labour market career and other observables to control for selection and take dynamic treatment assignment into...

We examine the redistributive impact of working time regulations in an economy with unequal lifetimes. It is shown that uniform working time reductions, when uncompensated (i.e. constant hourly wage), can reduce inequalities in realized lifetime well-being between short-lived and long-lived...

The vast literature on earnings inequality has so far largely ignored the role played by hours of work. This paper argues that in order to understand earnings dispersion we need to consider not only the dispersion of hourly wages but also inequality in hours worked as well as the correlation...

Using the New Immigrant Survey, we investigate the impact of immigrant women’s own labor supply prior to migrating and female labor supply in their source country on their labor supply and wages in the US. Women migrating from higher female labor supply countries work more in the US. Most of...

The standard literature on working time has modelled the decisions of firms in a deterministic framework in which firms can choose between employment and overtime (given mandated standard hours). Contrary to this approach, we consider the impact of uncertainty and real options on the decision of...

Evidence for the United States suggests balanced growth despite falling investment-good prices and less than unitary elasticity of substitution between capital and labor. This is inconsistent with the Uzawa Growth Theorem. We extend Uzawa.s theorem to show that introducing human capital...

We use national labor force surveys from 1983 through 2011 to construct hours worked per person on the aggregate level and for different demographic groups for 18 European countries and the US. We find that Europeans work 19% fewer hours than US citizens. Differences in weeks worked and in the...