Constraints on the Choice of Work Hours

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This is a very interesting and important research project in the study of the U.S. labor market. It addresses several questions about the way workers perceive the number of hours they would like to work versus the amount of time they actually spend at work. Intuitively one might think that for a given wage, most people would prefer more leisure time than they have. However, past empirical work by Professor Kahn and Professor Lang has provided strong evidence that just the opposite is true. Using questions from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics they estimate that almost 75% of the people interviewed have constraints on the amount of time they spend at work. One half of those workers would prefer to work a different number of hours than they actually work, and surprisingly, nearly 90% of them would spend more time at work if they were able. The project is important in that such a result provides strong indications of significant hours of work constraints and underemployment in the U.S. This project examines the constraints inherent in the labor market which keep people from making the tradeoff between leisure time and work time which they perceive to be best for them. Specifically Professor Kahn and Professor Lang examine two analytical models of labor force participation. Both models incorporate contracts which are implicitly understood between firms and workers, and both can be tested by seeing how hours constraints vary with worker tenure. Cross sectional data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics include questions that allow researchers to ascertain whether for a particular worker that person had more work available, wanted to work more, or wanted to work less. A series of studies have shown a correlation between job tenure and the constraints on hours of work. Low tenure jobs typically have a constraint wherein workers spend more time at work than they wish, while in high tenure jobs people are constrained from working as much as they would like. This project also tests the correspondence between job tenure and time at work, as well as the relationship between hours of work and union participation. Professor Kahn and Professor Lang verify their results by comparing them with similar studies using different data sets, and by conducting their own in-depth survey of the respondents in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.