Workers, Workplaces and Working Hours
| Author | Mark L Bryan |
| Published date | 01 December 2007 |
| Date | 01 December 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00647.x |
Workers, Workplaces and Working Hours
Mark L. Bryan
Abstract
This article uses the British Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998
dataset to evaluate the importance of firm-level factors in determining weekly
hours of work in Britain, to analyse the amount of variation of hours within
firms, and to assess whether workers are sorted into firms on the basis of hours.
Nearly a third of the explained variation in weekly hours of work can be
ascribed to firm-level differences, which are unrelated to any observed worker
characteristics. Firm-level ‘policies’ are especially important in the private-
services sector. A further 40 per cent of variance can be attributed to the effect
within firms of different occupation, skills and family characteristics. Finally,
about a quarter of the explained variation in working hours is due to a sorting
process of workers to firms, especially on the basis of skill and occupation.
1. Introduction
Previous research has established that employer-determined working-time
arrangements affect employees’ well-being and sense of work–life balance
(see, e.g. Bacon et al. 2005; White et al. 2003). There is also evidence that a
mismatch between desired and actual hours lowers job satisfaction (Clark
2005; Green and Tsitsianis 2005). Long-hours working may be particularly
problematic and evidence from surveys of employers (e.g. Hogarth et al.
2003) confirms there is a long-hours culture in some workplaces: long hours
are used even when they are not strictly needed for business reasons (such as
covering staff shortages and meeting deadlines).
Against this background, the work–life balance debate revolves around
how feasible it is for workers to find hours of work that fit in with their
lifestyle and family commitments. In their cross-national study, Berg et al.
(2004) argue that employees’ control over working time depends on the
institutional context, labour market conditions and the strategies adopted by
management and unions. Within firms, management and union strategies
Mark L. Bryan is at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex.
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8543.2007.00647.x
45:4 December 2007 0007–1080 pp. 735–759
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
may or may not enhance individual workers’ control over hours, while
favourable labour market conditions should give employees more bargaining
power. For instance, management may want staff to work long hours, but
also be under pressure in a tight labour market to offer shorter hours or
flexible schedules. Hogarth et al. (2003) report evidence for Britain that some
firms have granted reductions in long hours at least partly aimed at improv-
ing staff morale (and offering more family/leisure time).
Another potential channel by which employees can increase their effective
control over hours is to switch firms (though this clearly assumes that firms
differ sufficiently in the hours they offer and that the labour market is highly
mobile). Commenting on the work–life balance debate, MacInnes (2005) is
sceptical that more bargaining within firms will significantly alter work–life
balance. One reason is that part of the demand for work–life balance may
already have been satisfied by a matching process of, for example, workers
with family commitments to firms offering short working hours.
The purpose of this article is to explore these different dimensions of
working hours in Britain. First, what is the impact of firm-level hours ‘poli-
cies’ or norms on the weekly hours of British workers? Are there long- and
short-hours workplaces? How would an individual’s hours change if (all else
constant) they moved to another workplace? Second, how much variation in
working hours is there within workplaces? For instance, how much difference
is there between the hours of workers with and without children who do
comparable jobs in the same firm? Third, how much evidence is there that
workers and firms are matched in terms of working hours? Do workers who
are predicted to work long hours (given their qualifications and other per-
sonal characteristics) tend to be found in firms that also demand long hours?
Despite the evidence that firm policy over hours matters, traditional
analysis of working time at the individual worker level tends to ignore the
employer dimension. The approach follows from the standard economic
model of labour supply in which hours worked, conditional on the wage,
depend only on workers’ ‘tastes’ for work (as influenced by household
structure). This article, by contrast, uses representative matched employer-
employee data to analyse hours at the individual worker level while taking
account of firm characteristics.
The results show that nearly a third of the explained variation in weekly
hours of work can be ascribed to firm-level differences which are unrelated to
any observed worker characteristics. Although one cannot exclude the effects
of unobserved worker-level characteristics — that similar workers tend to be
clustered in workplaces for reasons unrelated to the workplace — this result
indicates that firm hours policies or norms are quite strong drivers of hours
worked. A further 40 per cent of variance can be attributed to the effect of
individual workers’ characteristics alone, both human capital and family
characteristics. Finally, about a quarter of the explained variation in working
hours is due to matching or sorting — in particular, the effects of skill and
occupation (and to a lesser extent family characteristics) on hours worked are
correlated with the firm-level determinants.
736 British Journal of Industrial Relations
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2007.
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