 The Unequal Work Day: A Long-Term ViewNo 6419, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc Abstract: I investigate how the distribution of daily hours worked among prime-aged men has changed since the 1890s by occupational and industrial group and by the hourly wage. I find that although hours of work have fallen for all workers, the decline was disproportionately large among the lowest paid workers. In the past hours worked were very unevenly distributed with the lowest paid workers working the longest day whereas today it is the highest paid workers who work the longest day. I argue that much of the change in the relative length of the work day can be accounted for by changes in the number of daily hours workers are willing to supply. I show that the unequal distribution of work hours in the past equalized income and that in recent times the unequal distribution of hours worked magnifies income disparities, suggesting that wage or wealth data may underestimate long-run improvements in the welfare of the lowest paid workers. JEL-codes: J22 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published as American Economic Review, Vol.88, no.2 (May 1998): 330-334. Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6419 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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