Unpaid Overtime in Germany: Differences between East and West

Silke Anger

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2005, vol. 125, issue 1, 17-27

Abstract: Although the standard work week is longer in East than in West Germany, there is a higher incidence and average amount of unpaid overtime worked in the new states. We try to explain the striking differences in unpaid overtime by analyzing the labor supply side. We focus on the investment character of overtime and examine whether workers use unpaid extra hours to signal higher productivity so as to reduce the risk of losing their job. Using panel data from the SOEP and approximating the risk of unemployment with regional unemployment rates we find partial evidence for the unemployment-overtime hypothesis.

Keywords: unpaid overtime; labor supply; signaling; unemployment; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D80 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/68491/1/An ... Overtime-Germany.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Unpaid Overtime in Germany: Differences between East and West (2005)
Working Paper: Unpaid overtime in Germany: differences between East and West (2003)
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:zbw:espost:68491

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().