Changes in Working Hours Are Driving Earnings Inequality

Mattis Beckmannshagen and Carsten Schröder

DIW Weekly Report, 2022, vol. 12, issue 32/33/34, 195-201

Abstract: According to Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) data, inequality in gross monthly earnings in Germany increased significantly between 1993 and 2003 and has been stagnating at a high level since 2008. As this Weekly Report shows, the increase is not being driven by higher hourly wage inequality, but rather by working hours: In recent years, employees with a high hourly wage work more than previously compared to employees with a low hourly wage. In particular, this applies to two groups whose share of the workforce has increased significantly in recent years: employed women and service sector employees. Had employees been able to work their desired number of hours, the rise in inequality would have been more moderate. A better work-life balance and more opportunities to increase working hours in the low-wage sector could counteract this trend.

Keywords: Earnings inequality; Working hours; Hours mismatch; Part-time work; Decomposition analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 J22 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.849932.de/dwr-22-32-1.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:diw:diwdwr:dwr12-32-1

Access Statistics for this article

DIW Weekly Report is currently edited by Tomaso Duso, Marcel Fratzscher, Peter Haan, Claudia Kemfert, Alexander Kritikos, Alexander Kriwoluzky, Stefan Liebig, Lukas Menkhoff, Karsten Neuhoff, Carsten Schröder, Katharina Wrohlich and Sabine Fiedler

More articles in DIW Weekly Report from DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Bibliothek (bibliothek@diw.de).