This paper addresses the on-going controversy regarding whether to allow private sector employers to substitute compensatory (comp) time for premium pay for workers' overtime work hours. It employs data from a unique survey that actually asked over 800 workers their preference for pay vs. future...

Does paid employment during high school and college displace the time students spend in educational activities? Most enrolled college students in the US now work in paid jobs, almost half of whom work 25 or more hours per week. An economic approach suggests that students consider the tradeoffs...

Contemporary labor economics has focused far more on preferred labor supply, and much less on whether workers are able to get the hours they truly desire, or that even when one’s labor supply could be considered voluntarily provided time and effort, it could lead to unanticipated adverse...

Researchers at the University of Illinois Project for Middle Class Renewal (PMCR), in partnership with Illinois Future of Work Taskforce, have developed an indicator of the quality of jobs throughout the state - Employment Quality of Illinois (EQ-IL). The effort was spurred by a partnership with...

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...

Analysis of the 2002 General Social Survey (GSS) Quality of Work Life Module finds that 21 percent of full-time employees worked extra hours because it was mandatory and 28 percent face required overtime work as a working condition- a slight increase since 1977. Logistic regressions find that...

Does extra work buy happiness and well-being? Unique survey data are analyzed to consider whether measures of self-reported subjective happiness, psychological health and economic satisfaction bear a net positive or negative relationship with working extra hours. Overtime work hours generally...

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...

The consequences for the work and family interface when workers' work longer than their usual hours might depend on the extra hours of work but perhaps even more so on whether such extra hours are required rather than chosen purely voluntarily. This research analyzes data from a large national...

This research tests predictions regarding potential disparities among the employed by personal characteristics in the ability to vary the starting and ending times of their workday and engage in work from home. Women and African-Americans possess lesser access to flexible work schedules, even...