Work Hours Constraints and Health

David Bell, Steffen Otterbach () and Alfonso Sousa-Poza

No 6126, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The issue of whether employees who work more hours than they want to suffer adverse health consequences is important not only at the individual level but also for governmental formation of work time policy. Our study investigates this question by analyzing the impact of the discrepancy between actual and desired work hours on self-perceived health outcomes in Germany and the United Kingdom. Based on nationally representative longitudinal data, our results show that work-hour mismatches (i.e., differences between actual and desired hours) have negative effects on workers’ health. In particular, we show that “overemployment” – working more hours than desired – has negative effects on different measures of self-perceived health.

Keywords: Germany; health; hours constraints; work time; United Kingdom (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 J21 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2011-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (46)

Published - published in: Annales d'Économie et de Statistique, 2012, 105-106, 35-54

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Related works:
Journal Article: Work Hours Constraints and Health (2012)
Working Paper: Work Hours Constraints and Health (2011)
Working Paper: Work hours constraints and health (2011)
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