Behind Migrant and Non‐Migrant Worktime Inequality in Europe: Institutional and Cultural Factors Explaining Differences
| Published date | 01 December 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12521 |
| Author | Julian Winterheller,Renate Ortlieb |
| Date | 01 December 2020 |
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12521
58:4 December 2020 0007–1080 pp. 785–815
Behind Migrant and Non-Migrant
Worktime Inequality in Europe:
Institutional and Cultural Factors
Explaining Differences
Renate Ortlieb and Julian Winterheller
Abstract
Migrants often work longer hours than their non-migrant counterparts. In this
article, we examine reasons behind this inequality, arguing that institutional
working time configurations at the country level have impact on worktime
inequality. Our cross-country comparative study uses data from the European
Labour Force Survey. We focus on France, Sweden, Austria and the UK as
archetypal examples of working time configurations and breadwinner models in
Europe. Our findings indicate that institutional and cultural factors play a role
in working hour dierences between migrants and non-migrants. We conclude
that more centralized worktime regulation and bargaining foster equality, and
we suggest several avenues for future research.
1. Introduction
While the share of foreign-born citizens living in the member states of the
European Union has been increasing in the last decades,research consistently
shows that migrants fare worse in the labour market than non-migrants.
The reasons behind these inequalities have become a burgeoning area of
inquiry for researchers, who typically focus on labour market outcomes
such as employment status (Cangiano 2012; Dustmann and Frattini 2013;
Fleischmann and Dronkers 2010; Guzi et al. 2015; Kogan 2006; Pichler
2011; Reyneri and Fullin 2011), income (Adsera and Chiswick 2007),
occupational attainment (Pichler 2011; Reyneri and Fullin 2011), and over-
/underqualification (Landesmann et al. 2015; Nieto et al. 2015). In contrast,
neglected topics in this research field are working times and the inequality
between migrants and non-migrants in terms of weekly working hours.
Renate Ortlieband Julian Winterheller are at University of Graz.
C
2020 The Authors.British Journal of Industrial Relations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialLicense,
which permits use, distribution and reproductionin any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
and is not used for commercial purposes.
786 British Journal of Industrial Relations
This article analyses working hours,because these are an important labour
market outcome,as highlighted in major scholarly and political debates. First,
working hours areinstitutionally important, because they are essential features
of employment relations and thus, one of the key subjects of labour market
institutions such as laws and collective agreements between employers and
employees (Berg et al. 2014; Eurofound 2016). Second, working hours are
economically important, because they are directly related to the earnings of
hourly paid workers and sometimes they result in overtime pay. In addition,
they aect future earnings and promotions (Bell and Freeman 2001). Third,
they are socially important, because they correlate with leisure and family
time. Social importance also arises from the fact that possible dierences in
working hours across sociodemographic groups signal so-called categorical
inequality in the labour market (McGovern 2012; Tilly 1998).
Despite the importance of working hours, dierences in working hours
between migrants and non-migrants is an under-researched topic. Previous
scholarly work foundmarked dierences, for instance between migrants from
Mexico working in the United States(Blau and Kahn 2007; Lin 2011; Lozano
and Sorensen 2015) or Poles in Denmark (Arnholtz and Hansen 2013) and
their non-migrant counterparts in these countries. These studies also suggest
that a country’s institutional context plays a role in working hour dierences.
However, though cross-country comparisons are the best way to examine the
impact of institutions (Berg et al. 2014; Guzi et al. 2015; Reitz 2002), there is
no cross-country comparative research on working hour dierences between
migrants and non-migrants to date.
In this article, we address this research gap. Adopting an institutionalist
perspective and a comparative research design, we aim at describing and
explaining working hour dierences between migrants and non-migrants
across countries in Europe. To theorize on the variation in working hour
dierences across countries, we apply the framework of working time
configurations introduced by Berg et al. (2014). Further, we take gender
dierences into account, as women and men show dierent patterns of
working hours — also known as ‘breadwinner models’ — among countries
(Anxo et al. 2013; Blau and Kahn 2015). We concentrate on fourcountries that
resemble archetypes of nationalworking time configurations and breadwinner
models, namely France, Sweden, Austria and the UK.
We use data from the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) for the
years 2005–2016. The EU-LFS is a unique data source especially well suited
for our research purposes. We find that the hours individuals work per week
dier considerably between migrants and non-migrants as well as across
countries, suggesting that dierent types of working time configurations are
associated with varying degrees of inequality. Further, we identify dierent
patterns for womenand men, indicating the relevance of breadwinner models.
Our contribution to the literature is threefold. First, we contribute to
the employment relations literature by cross-country comparative research
highlighting the link between labour market institutions and inequality.
Second, we add to the growing research field of working time comparisons
C
2020 The Authors.British Journal of Industrial Relations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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