Working Paper: NBER ID: w17649
Authors: Jungmin Lee; Daiji Kawaguchi; Daniel S. Hamermesh
Abstract: How would people spend additional time if confronted by permanent declines in market work? We examine the impacts of cuts in legislated standard hours that raised employers' overtime costs in Japan around 1990 and Korea in the early 2000s. Using time-diaries from before and after these shocks, we show that these shocks were effective--per-capita hours of market work declined discretely. The economy-wide drops in market work were reallocated solely to leisure and personal maintenance. In the absence of changing household technology a permanent time gift leads to no increase in time spent in household production by the average individual.
Keywords: time allocation; market work; household production; labor market policy
JEL Codes: E20; J11; J22
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| legislated reductions in standard work hours in Japan and Korea (J38) | decline in market work time (J29) |
| decline in market work time (J29) | shifts in leisure activities in Japan (J29) |
| decline in market work time (J29) | shifts in tertiary activities in Korea (O14) |
| decline in market work time (J29) | no increase in household production time (D13) |