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Title: Working time over the 20th century

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2005

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Abstract: Over the last 130 years average hours worked in todays advanced industrialized countries decreased by 47 percent. Here, average hours worked refers to the total number of hours worked in the market sector relative to the population age 15 or older. The secular decline in average hours worked has two components: the main component, for all countries considered, is a strong decline in weekly hours worked per employed person, the workweek length. The other component, employed persons in the population age 15 or older, or the employment rate, displays no clear pattern. The paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium model to analyze the long run labor supply of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. A key feature of the model is a two activity technology. One of the activities uses managerial supervision and supplies supervisory services to the other technology. There are two main findings. Taxes account for a large part of the change in the employment rate, but dont account for the decline in the workweek length. However, technological progress in the supervisory activity accounts for 46 to 80 percent of the decline in the workweek length and for a significant part of the country-specific change in the employment rate.

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Authors: Ueberfeldt, Alexander

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Institution: University of Minnesota

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Publisher Location: Minneapolis, MN

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Poverty and Welfare

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