“Worktime regulations and spousal labor supply”, with Dominique Goux and Eric Maurin.ISER External Seminars

We investigate cross-hour effects in spousal labor supply exploiting independent variation in hours worked generated by the introduction of the shorter workweek in France in the late 1990s. We find that female and male employees treated by the shorter legal workweek reduce their weekly labor supply by about 2 hours, and do not experience any reduction in their monthly earnings. While wives of treated men do not seem to adjust their working time at either the intensive or extensive margins, husbands of treated wives respond by cutting their workweek by about half an hour to one hour, according to specifications and samples. Further tests reveal that husbands’ labor supply response is not associated with a reduction in their usual working hours, but with a cut in the non-usual component of their workweek, also leading to an increase in the take-up rate of paid vacation and/or sick leave. These margins of adjustment are shown to have no detrimental impact on (current) men’s earnings. The estimated cross-hour effects are consistent with the presence of spousal leisure complementarity for husbands, though not for wives.

Presented by:

Barbara Petrongolo (LSE)

Date & time:

November 21, 2011 4:00 pm


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