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Jan Bietenbeck . Photo

Jan Bietenbeck

Senior lecturer

Jan Bietenbeck . Photo

The Effect of Working Hours on Health

Author

  • Inés Berniell
  • Jan Bietenbeck

Summary, in English

Does working time causally affect workers' health? We study this question in the context of a French reform which reduced the standard workweek from 39 to 35 hours, at constant earnings. Our empirical analysis exploits variation in the adoption of this shorter workweek across employers, which is mainly driven by institutional features of the reform and thus exogenous to workers' health. Difference-in-differences and lagged dependent variable regressions reveal a negative effect of working hours on self-reported health and positive effects on smoking and body mass index, though the latter is imprecisely estimated. Results are robust to accounting for endogenous job mobility and differ by workers' occupations.

Department/s

  • Department of Economics

Publishing year

2017-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

IZA Discussion Paper Series

Issue

10524

Document type

Working paper

Publisher

IZA Working paper series

Topic

  • Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

Keywords

  • working hours
  • health
  • smoking
  • BMI
  • I10
  • I12
  • J22

Status

Published