Varieties of the rat race
Working Hours in the Age of Abundance
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4237665 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jan Behringer (Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK) , Düsseldorf, Germany), Martin Gonzalez-Granda (University of Duisburg-Essen), Till Van Treeck (0000-0002-5266-0196, University of Duisburg-Essen) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 141-168 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Socio-Economic Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ser/mwac067 |
| OpenAlex | W4313706997 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 29 |
We ask why working hours in the rich world have not declined more sharply or even risen at times since the early 1980s, despite a steady increase in productivity, and why they vary so much across rich countries. We use an internationally comparable database on working hours (Bick et al., 2019) and conduct panel data estimations for a sample of 17 European countries and the USA over the period 1983-2019. We find that high or increasing top-end income inequality, decentralized labor relations, and limited government provision of education and other in-kind services contribute to long working hours. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that upward-looking status comparisons in positional consumption ('Veblen effects') contribute to a 'rat race' of long working hours that is more or less pronounced in different varieties of capitalism
Capitalism · Consumption (sociology) · Demographic economics · Econometrics · Economic growth · Economics · Inequality · Labour economics · Panel data · Political science · Politics · Productivity · Race (biology) · Social science · Sociology · Veblen good · Working hours · Demography · Employment and Welfare Studies · Gender Studies · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Social Limits to Growth
The Rug Rat Race
The Economics of Parenting
The incentive for working hard
Varieties of Capitalism
Measuring Trends in Leisure
Relative income concerns and the rise in married women's employment
Trickle-Down Consumption
Are changes in the dispersion of hours worked a cause of increased earnings inequality
Extreme work hours in Western Europe and North America
What makes education positional? Institutions, overeducation and the competition for jobs
Emulation, Inequality, and Work Hours
Varieties of capitalism and growth regimes
The Economic Consequences of Family Policies
Rethinking Comparative Political Economy
Three Worlds of Working Time
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |