Work Hour Mismatch on Life Evaluation: Full Heterogeneity and Individual- and Country-Level Characteristics of the Most and Least Affected Workers

Chi Zhang (), Xiangdan Piao () and Shunsuke Managi
Additional contact information
Chi Zhang: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)
Xiangdan Piao: Iwate University

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2023, vol. 170, issue 2, No 13, 637-674

Abstract: Abstract Mismatches between workers’ actual and preferred hours of work are ubiquitous and have detrimental effects on well-being. Yet, the full heterogeneity of these effects and the characteristics of the most and least affected subpopulations remain largely unknown. This study collects survey data from 37 countries and estimates the full heterogeneity in the effects using a newly developed method—the sorted partial effect method. Based on the full heterogeneity, we employ classification analyses on the 10%-most and 10%-least affected groups and show that individuals most (vs. least) affected by overemployment are younger, while those most (vs. least) affected by underemployment are older. Age is the most influential factor that distinguishes the most and least affected workers when compared with other individual-level factors such as education level, household income, and the number of children. Country-level differences between the most and least affected groups imply that work hour mismatch is more tolerable for workers in relatively poorer countries than for workers in wealthier countries. These findings underscore age-tailored policy responses for alleviating the negative effects of work hour mismatch and provide insights for understanding the complex economic preferences across countries.

Keywords: Working hours; Subjective well-being; Overemployment; Underemployment; Age difference; Cross-country comparison (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-023-03193-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:soinre:v:170:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s11205-023-03193-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11205-023-03193-8

Access Statistics for this article

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement is currently edited by Filomena Maggino

More articles in Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().