Does Labor Legislation Benefit Workers? Well-Being after an Hours Reduction

Daniel Hamermesh, Daiji Kawaguchi and Jungmin Lee

No 8077, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Are workers in modern economies working "too hard" – would they be better off if an equilibrium with fewer work hours were achieved? We examine changes in life satisfaction of Japanese and Koreans over a period when hours of work were cut exogenously because employers suddenly faced an overtime penalty that had become effective with fewer weekly hours per worker. Using repeated cross sections we show that life satisfaction in both countries may have increased relatively among those workers most likely to have been affected by the legislation. The same finding is produced using Korean longitudinal data. In a household model estimated over the Korean cross-section data we find some weak evidence that a reduction in the husband's work hours increased his wife's well-being. Overall these results are consistent with the claim that legislated reductions in work hours can increase workers' happiness.

Keywords: happiness; overtime work; rat-race (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J23 J28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2014-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ger, nep-hap, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Published - published in: Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 2017, 44, 1-12

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Related works:
Journal Article: Does labor legislation benefit workers? Well-being after an hours reduction (2017)
Working Paper: Does Labor Legislation Benefit Workers? Well-Being after an Hours Reduction (2014)
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