Effects of a national work hours restriction in a high hours country

Jieun Lee

doi:10.2478/izajolp-2022-0006

Figures & Tables

Distribution of hours worked before the policy change.Notes: (A) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who worked more than 34 h in the reference week, in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (B) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who usually worked more than 34 h/week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction.

Trends in actual hours worked.Notes: The new work hour restriction was passed on February 28, 2018 and first implemented on July 1, 2018. (A) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who worked more than 34 h in the reference week in industries where the new restriction was enforced in all subsectors in July 2018. (B) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who worked more than 34 h in the reference week in industries either where the new work hour restriction was enforced in July 2019 or where it was enforced in some subsectors in July 2018 and in the other subsectors in July 2019. (C) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who worked more than 34 h in the reference week in industries where the new restriction was enforced in some subsectors in July 2019 but it would not be compulsory in the other subsectors due to the legal position of special case.

Individual-level event-study estimates.Notes: The new work hour restriction was passed on February 28, 2018 and was first implemented on July 1, 2018. (A) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who worked more than 34 h in the reference week, in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (B) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who usually worked more than 34 h/week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (C) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who usually worked more than 34 h/week as salaried or hourly employees in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (D) Male workers between the ages of 25 and 55, who usually worked more than 34 h/week as salaried or hourly employees in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction.

Group-level event-study estimates.Notes: The new work hour restriction was passed on February 28, 2018 and was first implemented on July 1, 2018. (A) Total work hours are the sum of actual hours worked of all male workers between the ages of 25 and 55 who worked at least an hour in the reference week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (B) Total work hours are the sum of actual hours worked of all male workers between the ages of 25 and 55 who worked more than 34 h in the reference week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (C) Total employment is the number of all male workers between the ages of 25 and 55 who worked at least an hour in the reference week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (D) Total employment is the number of all male workers between the ages of 25 and 55 who worked more than 34 h in the reference week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (E) Total worker pay is the sum of monthly earnings of all male workers between the ages of 25 and 55 who usually worked at least an hour per week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction. (F) Total worker pay is the sum of monthly earnings of all male workers between the ages of 25 and 55 who usually worked more than 34 h/week in all industries and establishment sizes subject to the new restriction.

Individual-level estimation results

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)

	Actual hours	Usual hours	Log monthly earnings	Log hourly wages	Usual hours	Log monthly earnings	Log hourly wages
Treatment effect	−4.242^*** (1.233)	−4.334^*** (0.987)	0.068 (0.054)	0.142^** (0.061)	−4.566^*** (0.973)	0.085^* (0.050)	0.169^*** (0.054)
Basic controls	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Additional controls					X	X	X

Observations	288,521	33,802	33,802	33,802	33,024	33,024	33,024
R-squared	0.115	0.147	0.495	0.500	0.160	0.525	0.541

Pre-trend tests for individual-level outcomes

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)

	Actual hours	Usual hours	Log monthly earnings	Log hourly wages	Usual hours	Log monthly earnings	Log hourly wages
Treatment effect	−1.092 (0.985)	−0.588 (1.742)	0.038 (0.484)	0.044 (0.061)	−0.513 (1.726)	0.038 (0.470)	0.045 (0.596)
Basic controls	X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Additional controls					X	X	X

Observations	146,583	20,699	20,699	20,699	20,699	20,699	20,699
R-squared	0.105	0.159	0.506	0.512	0.174	0.542	0.557

Summary statistics for policy intensity

Min	1st Quartile	2nd Quartile	3rd Quartile	Max	Mean	SD
0.009	0.135	0.192	0.241	0.862	0.200	0.099

Proportion of workers working >52 h				19.63%
Observations				174,870

Pre-trend tests for group-level outcomes

	A. All workers

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)

	Log total work hours	Log total employment	Log total worker pay	Log total worker pay
Treatment effect	0.006 (0.100)	0.054 (0.099)	−0.026 0.275	0.064 (0.231)
Basic controls	X	X	X	X
Additional controls				X
R-squared	0.183	0.081	0.306	0.448

Group-level estimation results

	A. All Workers

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)

	Log total work hours	Log total employment	Log total worker pay	Log total worker pay
Treatment effect	−0.143 (0.107)	−0.083 (0.110)	−0.135 (0.261)	−0.137 (0.249)
Basic controls	X	X	X	X
Additional controls				X
R-squared	0.187	0.077	0.267	0.320

Summary statistics

	Before		After

	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
A. Outcome variables for full-time workers
Actual hours worked	46.971	8.134	45.188	7.056
Usual hours worked^*	43.450	6.401	43.246	5.857
Monthly earnings (10,000 Won)^*	329.171	153.306	353.503	169.142
Hourly wages (10,000 Won)^*	1.783	0.906	1.909	0.981
B. Outcome variables for workers working >52 h/week
Actual hours worked	60.345	6.612	59.814	6.284
Usual hours worked^*	59.894	5.627	59.436	5.453
Monthly earnings (10,000 Won)^*	272.004	111.977	307.123	128.292
Hourly wages (10,000 Won)^*	1.050	0.446	1.186	0.499
C. Demographic characteristics
Age	40.050	8.358	40.149	8.393
Marital status
Single	0.283	0.450	0.313	0.464
Married	0.683	0.465	0.655	0.476
Widowed	0.004	0.062	0.004	0.059
Divorced	0.030	0.171	0.029	0.167
D. Job characteristics
Fixed-term contract	0.100	0.300	0.107	0.310
Status in employment
Regular workers	0.844	0.363	0.859	0.348
Temporary workers	0.089	0.284	0.079	0.269
Daily hired workers	0.038	0.194	0.034	0.180
Self-employed with employees	0.029	0.169	0.028	0.166
Self-employed without employees	0.000	0.004	0.000	0.002
Unpaid family workers	0.000	0.015	0.000	0.020
Establishment size
5–9 employees	0.187	0.390	0.183	0.386
10–29 employees	0.246	0.430	0.249	0.433
30–99 employees	0.221	0.415	0.216	0.411
100–299 employees	0.137	0.343	0.137	0.344
300+ employees	0.211	0.408	0.215	0.411
E. Additional job characteristics^*
Special type of employment	0.012	0.107	0.010	0.097
Flexible work hours	0.064	0.245	0.152	0.359
Employer-sponsored pension	0.897	0.304	0.913	0.282
Employer-sponsored health care	0.900	0.300	0.914	0.280
Employment insurance	0.794	0.404	0.842	0.365
Severance pay	0.890	0.313	0.906	0.292
Bonus	0.873	0.332	0.859	0.348
Overtime pay	0.670	0.470	0.669	0.471
Paid vacation	0.810	0.393	0.827	0.378
Training	0.681	0.466	0.675	0.468
Salary form
Monthly	0.593	0.491	0.580	0.494
Annually	0.303	0.459	0.320	0.467
Others	0.104	0.305	0.100	0.300
Union
No union	0.656	0.475	0.660	0.474
Not eligible for union	0.076	0.265	0.077	0.266
Eligible but did not join union	0.078	0.268	0.082	0.275
Union member	0.190	0.392	0.181	0.385

Observations for all male full-time workers	174,870		113,651
Observations for male workers working >52 h/week	34,322		14,212
Observations for all male full-time workers^*	20,699		13,103
Observations for male workers working >52 h/week^*	1,914		901

Effects of a national work hours restriction in a high hours country

Figures & Tables

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Individual-level estimation results

Pre-trend tests for individual-level outcomes

Summary statistics for policy intensity

Pre-trend tests for group-level outcomes

Group-level estimation results

Summary statistics

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