Journal of Business Ethics (2009) 84:217–227
DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9698-z
A Brief History of Long Work Time and
the Contemporary Sources of Overwork
ABSTRACT. What are some of the key historical trends
in hours of work per worker in US? What economic,
social-psychological, organizational and institutional for-
ces determine the length of individuals’ working hours?
How much of the trend toward longer working hours
among so many workers may be attributable to workers’
preferences, workplace incentives or employers’ con-
straints? When can work become overwork or worka-
holism – an unforced addiction to incessant work activity
which risk harm to workers, families or even economies?
The first part of this article traces the history of the length
of working hours and its recent polarization. The second
part develops a multi-disciplinary model to identify
motivations behind working longer hours. Individuals’
desired work hours will stem from the weighted contri-
bution of five sources: (1) current real wage rates; (2)
forward-looking, wage trajectories; (3) relative status
associated with hours of labor; (4) intrinsic rewards,
process benefits or amenities acquired through work; (5)
hours demanded by the employer and other structural
constraints, to which workers may adapt. Employers and
their established conditions of work have influenced the
course of long run trends labor supply and in work time
structures. The final section suggests policies that might
address the persistence of long hours.
KEY WORDS: working hours, working time, overwork,
labor supply, hours constraints, labor history, workaholism
JEL CLASSIFICATIONS: B25, J22, J28
Overview
What are some of the key historical trends and patterns
in hours of work per worker in US? What forces and
counterforces determine the length of individuals’
work hours-economic, social–psychological–cultural,
organizational, and institutional? How much of the
trend in work hours may be attributable to workers’
Ó Springer 2008
Lonnie Golden
preferences, external incentives, and employers’
constraints? What motivates employees to desire to
work longer work hours? Can work become over-
work – risking harm to workers, families, or econo-
mies – or workaholism, an unforced addiction to
incessant work activity? The first part of this article
traces the history of the length of working hours and
its recent polarization. The second develops a multi-
disciplinary model to identify the motivations behind
more workers desiring or getting longer hours. The
final section briefly suggests policies that might curb
the persistence of long hours by addressing its
underlying economic and social sources.
The long-run historical trend of hours
of work
Most scholars begin the quest for identifying the
secular trends in work hours with the onset of the
industrial revolution (Alvarez-Cuadrado, 2007;
Bienefeld, 1972; Costa, 1998; Cross, 1988; Hopkins,
1982; Thompson, 1967). There are essentially three
identifiable stages of development in the duration of
weekly or annual hours worked since the 1800s:
gradual reduction, stabilization, and then more re-
cently, polarization. In the first wave, during the
initial transformation from agricultural to industrial
type jobs and workplaces, many workers in the US
were working as long as 70 h per week or more
(Whaples, 2001). Most of the increase in hours
occurred on an annual basis, with a rise in the length
of the workyear and disappearance of seasonal down
time. Daily hours appear to have peaked by 1830 in
the US and declined somewhat during the rest of the
century as employers accommodated workers calls
for a shorter workday. It was facilitated by tech-
nology and mechanization that made it possible for
218 Lonnie Golden
employers to maintain original output levels even
while shortening daily hours (Atack et al., 2003).
The decline in hours spread with the advent of the
shorter hours movements in the latter quarter of the
19th century. Labor strikes to limit work hours be-
gan as early as 1791 in the US and even earlier in
Britain (Brody, 1989; Roediger and Foner, 1989).
The secular decline in the workweek length has
tended to be non-linear or cyclical. Historically,
declines in the ‘‘standard’’ workweek have occurred
during growth periods following periods of eco-
nomic stagnation. Demand for shorter work time
became pent up and only could be exercised once
workers garnered sufficient leverage to negotiate for
shorter hours (Roche, 1987). This was not sustain-
able without the establishment of new institutions,
such as labor unions, the labor movement and
favorable labor protection laws, particularly in the
early 20th century developed economies (Martorana
and Hirsch, 2001; Ueberfeldt, 2006; Whaples,
2001). Otherwise, hours might have continued
increasing. The hyper-competitive, unregulated
market for labor in the 19th century contributed to
long hours per week that left workers’ desire for a
shorter workday often unfulfilled (Altman, 1999;
Atack et al., 2003; Bourdieu and Reynaud, 2001).
By the 1920s in the US, the average workweek
was down to about 48 h per worker. In the first
years of the Great Depression, workweeks dropped
precipitously. Work-sharing practices spread, where
employers reduced operating days per week or shift
lengths, actively encouraged by Federal government
policies (Hunnicutt, 1988). Fair Labor Standards
Act legislation was passed in 1938 that instituted a
standard workweek, enforced by the now familiar
time-and-a-half premium requirement for ‘‘over-
time’’ hours beyond 40 in a given one-week period
for workers. However, the shorter hours movement
dissipated thereafter, with greater interest among
workers for reaping the rewards for productivity
gains through pay increases and consumption
growth rather than shortened hours. Workers
interest regarding hours became more of stabilizing
the workweek through, to keep income predict-
able. Indeed, the workweek showed remarkable
stability for decades thereafter (Bernanke and
Powell, 1986; Golden, 1990). Technological pro-
gress, particularly in supervisory activity, would
forever restrain the workweek (Ueberfeldt, 2006).
Trends began to change about 1970 or soon
thereafter. What has occurred since then is not yet
settled. A stir was created by evidence that average
annual hours in the US reversed course and started
rising (Leete and Schor, 1994). The overall average
length of weekly hours is clearly not the ideal indi-
cator of work time trends because the average may be
suppressed if there is growing percentage of the labor
force working in less than full-time or year-round
employment, such as involuntary part-time and
contingent work. The trend in weekly hours among
only full-time workers has exhibited a slight increase
since the early 1970s. It has risen clearly among those
employed in managerial, professional, transportation,
and sales occupations and among the relatively
highest wage-earners (Bernstein and Kornbluh,
2005; Costa, 1998; Drago, 2000; Rones et al., 1997).
At least among the most educated in the work force
and white men, average hours have lengthened
(Coleman and Pencavel, 1993). Trends vary
depending on samples and estimation methodology.
Analysis of average weekly hours of work in the
manufacturing sectors, however, reinforces findings
from households (Hetrick, 2000). There are detrac-
tors who observe no recent increase in hours at all
(Greenwood and Vandenbroucke, 2005; McGratten
and Rogerson, 2004; Ramey and Francis, 2006).
What is most clear is that the last few decades may
be more accurately characterized as one of polariza-
tion of work hours or a time-divide (Bluestone and
Rose, 1998; Drago, 2000; Jacobs and Gerson, 2004;
Messenger, 2004). The share of employed men
working 50 or more hours per week has been rising
among highly educated, high-wage, salaried and
older-aged workers (Drago et al., 2005; Epstein and
Kalleberg, 2004; Kuhn and Lozano, 2006). Currently,
almost 19% of the US work force works 50 or more
hours per week, and almost one-third works longer
than 40-h per week. Also, there has been growth in
the shorter-hour tail of the hours distribution. Table I
summarizes several studies of work hours in the US
through the 1990s. Corresponding trends in average
leisure time have been a recent battleground. A con-
sensus is emerging that there has been growing
inequality in the distribution of leisure, mirroring the
inequality of wages – higher earners have experienced
a loss of leisure time (Aguiar and Hurst, 2007).
In contrast to the trends in the U.S., starting about
the same time, 1970, annual and weekly hours in
 A Brief History of Long Work Time and the Contemporary Sources of Overwork 219

TABLE I
Trends in work hours, worker surveys, selected research findings

Period Change in work hours Sample Data Sources

1979–2000 16% increase Married Couples CPS Bernstein and

(490#) annual hours Kornbluh (2005)
1979–2002 50% increase Wives in Married
(466#) annual hours Couples
1976–1993 2.4% (1 hour) weekly, Wage and Salary CPS Rones et al. (1997)
100#annual; Employed Men;
5.9% (2 hours), 233# Women, age 16+
increases
1967–1989 3.3% increase (66 hours), All employed, PSID, CPS Bluestone and
avg. annual hrs. per year; Rose (1998)
1982–1995 140 annual avg. hours, Prime-age (25–54)
600 annual avg. hours workers, working couples
1969–1989 Increase of 7% (86#) in annual Average worker, working family CPS Leete and Schor
hours, 16% increase (1994)
1969–1987 Increase of 163, 98 and 305 Average employed, Men, Women CPS Schor (1992)
#annual hours
1976–1988 Increase, 3.0 hours Married couples, wife works; PSID Roberts and Rupert
Decrease 0.4 hours wife does not (1995)
1960–1988 Decreases of 2.1% and Men: White, Black; Women: Census, CPS Coleman and
4.7 % (99#), and 2% White, Black, avg. Pencavel (1993)
and 3% (56#); weekly, annual hours
3.5%, 1.7% (27#), increases
of 7.2% and 10.7% (159#)

continental Western Europe declined, at least
through the 1980s (Burgoon and Baxandal, 2004;
Hagen, 2005; Huberman and Minns, 2007). This
decline occurred at different rates and in diverse
forms in the various EU countries. Several social and
institutional factors account for the cross-country
differences, including statutory, and collectively
bargained restrictions on standard and overtime
hours (Bell and Freeman, 1995; Bosch, 1999; Rey-
nolds, 2004; Rubery et al., 2005; Stier and Lewin-
Epstein, 2003). For example, from 1960 to 1985, the
Netherlands, Belgium, and West Germany experi-
enced a reduction in annual hours. The trend toward
shorter hours has slowed in the last two decades
(Blyton, 1989; Messenger, 2004). Employers and
governments have pursued greater variability in
working time, such as annualization of hours, in part
to compensate employers for the reduction in the
standard. As in the U.S., there is an increasing
diversity of work patterns in Europe since the 1970s,
across sectors, industries, and even individual
workers. Yet, US workweeks remain considerably
longer than elsewhere, particularly in the non-Anglo
countries. Americans average 25 working hours per
person of working age and 46 weeks per year in
contrast to the Germans average of less than 19 h
and French average of 40 weeks per year. The evi-
dence suggests that most of discrepancy between the
continents is explained by labor market regulations
that limit hours or extend vacation time, promoted
by strong labor unions and adopted by governments
to cope with declining industries, and has less to do
with differential tax rates or innate cultural differ-
ences (Altonji and Oldham, 2003; Alesina et al.,
2005; Ueberfeldt, 2006).
Explanations of long hours: structural,
economic, social, and behavioral factors
What explains this growing proportion of the work
force working more or longer hours, at least in some
220 Lonnie Golden
countries and among certain types of workers? A
consistent set of contributing factors can be applied
across time and countries, but vary across disciplines
considering the question. The same underlying
structural economic factors that economic historians
have identified as the drivers in the preceding cen-
tury may now be at work in the opposite direction.
When hours rose, in historical periods, it was associated
with structural factors such as a higher capital-labor
ratio, larger enterprise size and greater pool of
immigrants and agricultural workers (Whaples,
2001). There was a supporting role for wage trends,
protective labor legislation, union power, and other
characteristics of the work force at the time. There
are counterforces that suppress any further escalation
of work hours, such as the rise in real wage rates and
decline in price of many key leisure goods that
enhanced the value of non-market time (Drago
et al., 2005; Greenwood and Vandenbroucke,
2005). However, these same factors may not be as
relevant, post-1970.
Work hours determination: Pure
economics of labor supply and beyond
Conventional economic analysis portrays the deter-
mination of working time as the result of the
interaction between optimizing agents supplying and
agents demanding labor services. Workers’ preferred
hours of labor supply are assumed to reflect a com-
bination of innate ‘‘preferences’’ reflecting their
unique, inherent taste or distaste for work or leisure,
and voluntary responses to external incentives, such
as their available wage rate and income from non-
labor sources. The net effect of wage rate increases
reveals whether workers wish to increase or decrease
their preferred hours of labor supply. The long-run
trend in average worktime is believed to vary
inversely with real wage rates, since the income
effect is presumed to dominate in the long run.
Preferences are associated with a worker’s stage of
the life – inversely with the presence of non-wage
income and the female or youth composition of the
work force – and positively with education levels,
household production technological advances, or a
composition of consumption toward services.
However, the conventional model’s focus on
rational individual or household choice provides no
more than a starting point, particularly when in
search of understanding longer-term trends and
cross-sectional variation in work hours over time
and among individuals (Huberman and Minns,
2007), or its well-being consequences (Layard,
2006). Conventional labor supply studies have paid
scant attention to the influence of social, cultural,
and workplace conditions over preference formation
(Philp et al., 2005; Nyland, 1991). Moreover, it
cannot explain sufficiently the level and timing of
changes in the average hours per worker over the
twentieth century (Altman, 2001). The recent run
up of hours in the US cannot be attributed to
changes in the demographic composition of the
labor force, changes in the mix of occupations and
industries or a simple reallocation of labor supply
within workers’ life cycles (toward middle years).
Opening the ‘‘black box’’ of preferences would
incorporate psychological, social and cultural sources
of workers’ constraints and preference adaptation, to
arrive at a deeper understanding of the roots of
trends in the time devoted toward work. Suppose a
model of the individual’s desired hours of labor
supply is:
"

? w e
H ¼ a þ h1 þ h2 NY þ h3 Dwtþ1
p t
#
þ h4 I þ h5 S þ h6 Htd
ðweights : h1 þ h2 þ


þ h6 ¼ 1Þ
where, H* desired hours of work (per week, year);
W current wage rate; P price level; We expected
future wage adjustment; NY non-wage and net asset
income; S relative status gained by individual among
reference groups; I internal rewards, intrinsic
rewards; Hd hours demanded by employer; a het-
erogeneous, individuals’ physiological capacity for
work; 0  h1 ; h3  1; h2 ; h4 ; h5 ; a  0
Individuals are motivated to work by both
extrinsic and intrinsic rewards (Ellingsen and
Johannesson, 2007; Wolfe, 1997). Desired work
hours reflect one’s perceived social roles other than
as ‘‘employee’’ (Kelloway et al., 2004). For one
thing, these roles may place constraints at various
stages in their life-cycle (e.g., as a parent, caregiver,
provider, student, and transitioning to retirement).
 A Brief History of Long Work Time and the Contemporary Sources of Overwork
Even beyond that are the more subtle underlying
characteristics of the workplace, organizational or
culture that exert influence on preference formation
regarding the value of work, material goods and
services and uses of time. To the extent such pref-
erences are adaptable, individuals’ desired work
hours will stem from the weighted contribution of
its five sources: (1) current real wage rates; (2) for-
ward-looking, potential reward of higher wage tra-
jectories; (3) relative status conferred upon
individuals for hours of labor effort; (4) intrinsic
rewards, process benefits, or amenities acquired
through work; (5) hours demanded by the em-
ployee, reflecting structural constraints. The latter
term makes explicit that employers and their estab-
lished conditions of work have indeed influenced
the course of long run trends in labor supply and in
work time structures (Huberman and Minns, 2007).
Specifying five separate arguments is not meant to
suggest there is no endogeneity. Nor is this model
meant to be directly, empirically tractable. Rather,
the purpose here is to present the potential con-
tributing factors, each entering in with its own
weight, derived from the emphases of separate re-
search literatures.
Work as forward-looking investments
in future wage growth trajectory
and signaling tactics
Spending more time on the job may reflect an effort to
acquire more human capital, to enhance probability of
future promotion or career progression (Michelacci
and Pijoan-Mas, 2007). When productivity cannot be
monitored at little cost, employers may use long hours
as a mechanism to rank the productivity of workers.
Highly productive workers will choose to work
inefficiently long hours (Sousa-Poza and Ziegler,
2003), choosing to perform extra work, face-time, or
presenteeism, beyond the standard or norm of a job or
workplace, as a way to signal future promotability.
Many employers may create a few shorter-hour jobs,
as a way to screen out potentially less productive
workers (Rebitzer and Taylor, 1995). Over time,
there may be more jobs that valorize long hours,
where requesting shorter hours is feared to be a neg-
ative signal (Landers et al., 1996; Yakura, 2001).
Among those who expect to be in managerial
221
positions, there is a positive relationship between the
number of work hours they prefer and the actual work
hours of their co-workers (Brett and Stroh, 2003;
Eastman, 1998; Feldman, 2002). There is also an
incentive to put in extra hours of work to amass sav-
ings or serve a protective device against the risk of
future job loss, demotion or pay cut, particularly if the
extent of job or income insecurity is rising (Bluestone
and Rose, 1998).
The intrinsic value of work: amenities,
process benefits and satisfaction
The full value of work to the one who performs it
includes the intrinsic value of the work itself and its
net social outcomes. Clearly, generating income to
reach some desired material standard of living is the
primary motivation for working. However, once
individuals reach a physiologically and socially
acceptable minimum standard of living, ‘‘needs’’
tend to move up the Maslow’s pyramid toward the
higher order. Individuals may be increasingly moti-
vated by the inherent value of labor conferred
through the individually transformative act of
working. The quaint notion of working more in
order to earn more time off from work has given
way to Americans taking ever shorter vacations and
even leaving ever more available vacation time on
the table (Galinsky et al., 2005).
If work activity is becoming more intrinsically
rewarding, safer, discretionary and autonomous,
rather than stress or anxiety-producing, hazardous,
onerous, routinized, and alienating, worker resistance
to working long hours may fall. Certain jobs or work
tasks provide ‘‘process benefits,’’ or outcomes that
actually improve well being (Juster and Stafford,
1985). Some high-paying managerial and professional
jobs are also rewarding in terms of the social interac-
tions and self-growth, so that their incumbents feel
exalted more than exploited (Feldman, 2002; Hewlett
and Luce, 2006). Perks of the workplace may be more
available to those workers willing to work additional
hours (Douglas and Morris, 2006). When the work-
place offers more amenities, work time becomes more
alluring relative to time spent in the household, par-
ticularly for those who shoulder the relatively larger
burden of household responsibilities (Hochschild,
2005). Largely because of greater job autonomy and
222 Lonnie Golden
satisfaction, the self-employed tend to work longer
hours than those employed by organizations (Hyyti-
nen and Ruuskanen, 2007). More autonomy in
scheduling tends to be offered to individuals in orga-
nizations who are presumed to adhere to the ‘‘ideal
worker’’ norm (Drago et al., 2005). The extension of
hours has been facilitated by teleworking – comput-
erization and network-based telecommunications
that allow work to be ever more portable and asyn-
chronous, albeit also more intrusive into nonwork
time (Argandona, 2003; Hübler, 2000; Taskin and
Devos, 2005).
Relative status and inequality: worker
positioning at the workplace and
household in consumption
The rising proportion of workers working long weekly
hours cannot be attributed to changes in real average
hourly earnings. However, compensation practices that
have heightened variation in earnings within each
occupational classification have raised the incentive to
supply weekly hours beyond 40 per week (Kuhn and
Lozano, 2006). The wider gap among pay grades in
occupations lead more workers to attempt to exceed
the hours worked by their co-workers or the tacit norm
in the workplace (Bell and Freeman, 1995; Bowles and
Park, 2005; Drago et al., 2005). Indeed, occupations
with longer workweeks have higher hourly earnings in
the US (Hecker, 1998). Thus, if future wage trajecto-
ries in more jobs are getting steeper (or short hours
penalty more severe), worker concern for long-term
relative status lengthens average hours.
Individuals may try to compete for higher relative
social status by accumulating status-conferring goods
and services (Schor, 1999). To the extent that
individuals seek a higher relative position in con-
sumption, they may wish more paid market work
(Altman, 2001). In the context of growing income
inequality, this requires that relatively less well-off
individuals work more hours in order to sustain their
relative position in consumption levels, to emulate
the consumption patterns of the already wealthy
(Bowles and Park, 2005; Schor, 1992). In addition,
decisions to work more hours may be motivated by
keeping pace with reference groups such as family or
siblings (Neumark and Postlewaite, 1998). More-
over, the cumulative effects of intensifying adver-
tising and promotional efforts eventually lead
workers to develop a taste for an array of products or
services that once was considered a luxury or ame-
nity into a necessity (George, 1997; Fraser and Pa-
ton, 2003). This process is solidified by bandwagon
effects, if individuals derive satisfaction from con-
suming goods and services that others are consuming
(Altman, 2001). Whereas income serves a positional
function, leisure time provides virtually no gain in
relative rank (Carlsson et al., 2007). Such consum-
erism is a primary force behind a rising proportion of
workers engaged in very long hours of work in
Australia (Drago et al., 2005). Indeed, those who
work overtime even when it is not mandatory tend
to be from the relatively higher income households
(Golden and Wiens-Tuers, 2005). One potential
counter force is if respect is accorded those who
work few hours yet produce much value per hour
(Haight, 1997), perhaps in lieu of pay (Ellingsen and
Johannesson, 2007). However, the term S will be
unambiguously positive if more respect is granted
just for being busy (Gershuny, 2005).
The role of employers’ demand: hours
constraints and overemployment
In the conventional labor market model, the
demand side is considered a passive force, accom-
modating workers’ preferences, at least in the long
run. Alternative approaches presume employers can
all but dictate the length of the working day. They
set limits on hours only because they confront
humans’ physical and mental limitations (Nyland,
1991). Consequently, working time currently may
be arranged less according to employee preferences,
and more as part of rigorous market competition
(Horrell and Rubery, 1991). Most workers face a
confined range of hours options in jobs (Rebitzer
and Taylor, 1995). The standard employer demand
for hours model assumes that continuous production
necessarily creates multiple shifts of fixed lengths
(Hart, 2004). In addition, there are ‘‘fixed costs’’ of
adding employees. This includes the costs of hiring
and training new, particularly skilled, employees and
also costs of contributions to employee benefits that,
in the US, are affixed to the number of employees
rather than overall hours or payroll size. Thus, firms
are incentivized to lengthen hours of existing
 A Brief History of Long Work Time and the Contemporary Sources of Overwork
employees rather than hire new employees in up-
turns, and offer more part-time jobs rather than
shorten hours of full-time employees during
downturns (Golden, 1990).
The employer demand side may impose con-
straints where work hours exceed individuals’ pre-
ferred number per week or per year. For example, if
there were unwelcome but mandatory overtime,
inadequate vacation time or too few quality part-
time jobs. A worker employed beyond their desired
number of work hours, willing but unable to sacri-
fice pay for reduced hours, is overemployed. Most
workers may quite rationally settle for a longer than
optimal workweek, because compensation losses
associated with part-time status are far more than
proportional to the hours reduction. Estimates of the
overemployment rate range widely, between coun-
tries and within the United States, from as little as
6% to as much as 50% (Golden and Gebreselassie,
2007; Lang and Kahn, 2001; Reynolds, 2004; Schor,
1999; Stier and Lewin-Epstein, 2003).
Adaptive preferences for hours:
overemployment, persistence
and workaholism
One likely response of overemployed workers is to
eventually adapt upward their number of preferred
hours of work. Overemployment inevitably creates a
feeling of time scarcity in the household. This in
turn may lead a household to alter its preferences
from self-produced goods and services to those that
are market-produced. The household may also then
shift from time-using goods and services to the more
time-saving type. In addition, households are likely
to shift preferences from time-intensive to income-
intensive leisure activities. All three such shifts may
ratchet upward individuals’ targeted income levels.
This is likely to gradually dissipate the initial desire
for shorter work hours (Rothschild, 1982). Likely
for this reason, the overemployment rate in the US
was no higher in 2001 than it was in 1985 despite
higher real wage rates and a longer average work-
week (Altman and Golden, 2004; Golden and Ge-
breselassie, 2007). Persistence occurs in the sense that
workers who usually work 50 or more hours per
week more continue working such long hours
indefinitely into the future (Drago et al., 2005).
223
The length of hours per worker in a given
country or sector is not only a consequence, but also
may be a cause of workaholism. Workaholism
occurs when there is an excessive, sustained alloca-
tion of time devoted toward work-related activities
that is not derived from necessity or other external
pressures (Snir et al., 2006). It is characterized by a
tendency to over-commit time at work, in excess of
that expected either organizationally or financially or
at the expense of one’s own health or family and
social time (Buelens and Poelmans, 2004; Scott
et al., 1997). Workaholism is at least slightly posi-
tively associated with work hours (McMillan and
O’Driscoll, 2006). Working long hours may often
reflect an individual’s personality-based, positive
relationship to work effort or striving for improved
equity (Porter, 2005; Peiperl and Jones, 2001).
Workaholism becomes problematic when long
hours go beyond an enthusiastic work ethic or sig-
naling of commitment, and becomes an addiction or
compulsion, particularly as the life cycle progresses.
When work involvement is manifest through long
work hours, especially organizationally based, it may
yield detrimental types of workaholism (Burke,
1999). About 30% in the US and Canada
self-identify as workaholic (Kemeny, 2002). The
rate is 53% among those who report working 60 or
more average hours per week. It is highest among
the upper income (Hamermesh and Slemrod,
2005).
Summary and implications for research
and policy
Long work hours have a long history. The most salient
recent trend is the growing proportion of the work
force that works very long hours. Overwork, hours per
day, week, or year worked beyond one’s physical and
mental capacity, is embedded in underlying economic,
institutional, cultural, and behavioral factors that make
long work hours an ostensibly rational choice for many
individuals or households. An individual’s preference
for longer work hours reflects not only changes in their
own real wage, non-wage income or life-cycle con-
straints, but their surrounding social reference groups,
organizational incentives, and legal institutions. Even
when self-imposed, long work hours create may spill-
over social costs (Hamermesh and Slemrod, 2005). A
224 Lonnie Golden
gradual, dynamic process involving social interactions
can make long work hours habituated and persistent
over time, particularly if spillovers of overwork are
discounted. An enlightening direction for future re-
search would be to explore more deeply the dynamic
processes by which workers’ drive to work long or
excessive hours is motivated more by personal disen-
gagement or organizational values and incentives, and
the extent to which the former is adapted to the latter
(Burke, 1999).
Overwork may be addressed by policy levers
that would counteract the historical, economic,
social, and institutional forces behind it. At the
individual level, there are potential medical solu-
tions (Kawase et al., 2006). Legal limits on
working hours are usually in response to risks of
fatigue or errors to workers’ and/or public health
and safety due, to compel rest and time off duty,
even when there are forward-looking and human
capital formulation reasons to justify working long
hours, such as for medical interns and residents
(Wiesing, 2007). Policies ranging from innovations
in the regulation of overtime work, curbs on
consumer debt and advertising, and a more pro-
gressive income tax may counter the role played
by positioning, envy and consumerism feeding the
habituation of longer work hours (Frank, 1999;
Hamermesh and Slemrod, 2005). Restrictions on
working hours provide a last resort tool to induce
a more efficient allocation of work hours (Alvarez-
Cuadrado, 2007). Since temporal patterns of work
and legal standards are collectively constructed,
working time structures providing a better balance
and diversity of options can be reconstructed
(Rakoff, 2002). A large step forward would be
adoption of the recently proposed legislation,
Working Family Flexibility Act (H.R. 4301). This
will provide employees the right to request mod-
ifications in their hours, schedule, or work loca-
tion, in an interactive process that balances
employee needs against potential disruption to the
employer’s business.
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Economics and Labor Studies, Abington College,
Penn State University,
0119 Sutherland Building, 1600 Woodland Rd.,
Abington, PA 19001, U.S.A.
E-mail: lmg5@psu.edu