Standards of Good Work in the Organisation of Working Time: Fragmentation and the Intensification of Work Across Sectors and OccupationsDate submitted: September 9, 2018Revised version accepted after double-blind review: August 13, 2019

Agnieszka Piasna

management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, 2020, vol. 31, issue 2, 259-284

Abstract: This article addresses the issue of good work in terms of working time organisation by exploring the link between diverse working time practices and work intensity. Existing studies have demonstrated that non-standard working hours expose workers to the pressures of work intensification, which can be defined as the compression of work activities into a unit of time. This article expands existing knowledge by investigating how the outcomes of non-standard working hours differ by sector and occupation, as well as by incorporating detailed and comprehensive measures of working time organisation in the empirical analysis. Based on EWCS data from 2010 and 2015 for 28 EU countries, the empirical analysis uses multilevel regression models with workers nested within countries. The results show that non-standard working hours and employer-driven scheduling are, on average, linked to more intense work than regular daytime hours scheduled from Monday to Friday or under worker-led flexibility arrangements. Consistent with expectations, the study points to significant differences in this relationship between sectors and occupations. Among others, in low-skilled and routine occupations, and service sectors such as transport, commerce, hospitality and health, short hours of work and employer-led flexibility are associated with relatively more intense work. Even where workers have some control over their schedules, jobs in these areas are not linked to lower levels of work intensity. The findings also support the expectation of overwork in high-skilled jobs, where long hours of work and high levels of worker-led flexibility are linked to relatively more intense work.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/0935-9915-2020-2-259 (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:nms:mamere:10.5771/0935-9915-2020-2-259

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Waldseestraße 3-5, 76530 Baden-Baden, Germany
https://www.nomos-sh ... w.aspx?product=29288

DOI: 10.5771/0935-9915-2020-2-259

Access Statistics for this article

management revue - Socio-Economic Studies is currently edited by Simon Fietze, Wenzel Matiaske, Ina Aust, Matthias Baum, Susanne Gretzinger, Sylvia Rohlfer and Florian Schramm

More articles in management revue - Socio-Economic Studies from Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG ().