Can working hour reduction save workers?

Jungmin Lee and Yong-Kwan Lee

Labour Economics, 2016, vol. 40, issue C, 25-36

Abstract: Long working hours are considered as one of the major risk factors for workplace accidents and workers' health. In this paper, we estimate the causal effect of working hours on industrial injury rates. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment in South Korea, where standard hours were reduced at different times by industry and establishment size from 2004 to 2011. We find that a one-hour reduction in weekly working hours significantly decreases the injury rate by about 8%.

Keywords: Working hours; Standard hour reduction; Workplace safety; Injury rate; Death rate; Difference-in-differences instrumental variable (DD-IV) estimation method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 J8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:labeco:v:40:y:2016:i:c:p:25-36

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2016.02.004

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