Today is International Workers’ Day, the origins of which date back to May Day 1886 when 200,000 US workmen engineered a nationwide strike for an eight-hour day. Since then many countries and supranational organizations have introduced regulations on the number of hours an employer can expect an employee to work.
“For many countries, there has been a steady slow monotonic decline in working hours over time (Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the US). But there are countries that have experienced variable demand for labor and hours of work, namely: Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.”
But what about the future of work? Dolton asks, "Do many office workers actually put in more hours out of the office by, for example, answering emails on the move whilst commuting, in the evenings, and at weekends? Might this trend, along with 'working from home,' lead to even more blurred distinctions between working and non-working hours?"
Read further articles on the impact of working time on the labor market:
Men experience levels of psychological distress equivalent to going through a divorce if they fail to match or surpass the levels of educational achievement of their parents, according to a new study. Read more
Increasing out-of-work income, Poland’s new child benefit reduces the incentive to participate in the labor market through an income effect. Estimates suggest that by mid-2017 the labor force participation rate of mothers fell by 2.4%. Read more.
All newly published one-pagers are also available to read and download in German.Find out more.
Opinion: What do we know about female criminality and how to control it?
Women are considerably less likely to commit crimes than men, but the gap is shrinking. According to the World Female Imprisonment List, while the number of men in prison has increased worldwide by about 20% over the last 20 years, that of women has increased by 53%. While women tend to commit mostly property crimes, their involvement has increased across all types of crime. Read the full commentary.
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ILO: Polarisation(s) in Labour Markets, June 19. The Directorate for Research, Studies and Statistics (DARES) of the French Ministry of Labour and the Research Department of the International Labour Organization (ILO) are organizing an international conference on “Polarisation(s) in Labour Markets”.
Call for papers: 3rd IZA Workshop: The Economics of Education, October 4-6. The aim of the workshop is to bring together about 30 researchers working on the economics of education, in particular on the theme “Education and the Labor Market”. Submission deadline: May 31