The shorter workweek and worker wellbeing: Evidence from Portugal and France

Anthony Lepinteur

PSE Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: Mandatory reductions in the workweek can be used by governments to attempt to reduce unemployment, and are usually assumed to improve the well-being of workers. Nevertheless, the net impact of shorter workweeks on worker welfare is ambiguous ex ante and little empirical effort has been devoted to identify how worker satisfaction changes with mandatory reductions in working time. Using data from the European Community Household Panel, this paper evaluates the impact of the exogenous reductions in weekly working hours induced by reforms implemented in Portugal and France. Difference-in-difference estimation results suggest that reduced working hours generated significant and robust increases in job and leisure satisfaction of the workers affected in both countries, with the rise in the former mainly being explained by greater satisfaction with working hours and working conditions.

Keywords: Working-hours reductions; job satisfaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hap
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01376209v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01376209v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The shorter workweek and worker wellbeing: Evidence from Portugal and France (2019)
Working Paper: The shorter workweek and worker wellbeing: Evidence from Portugal and France (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01376209

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in PSE Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().