IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rom/merase/v9y2024i1p61-77.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Non-Agricultural Labour Productivity Effects of Working Time: South Africa’s Case

Author

Listed:
  • Chama CHIPETA

    (University of Johannesburg, South Africa)

  • Thomas HABANABAKIZE

    (Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa)

  • Mulatu Fekadu ZERIHUN

    (Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa)

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to assess the impact of working time on non-agricultural labour productivity in the South African economy. To achieve this objective, the study utilised the Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDL) and correlation analysis to analyse the effects of different working time arrangements on labour productivity. The results of the study indicated that weekly working hours have a significant influence on worker productivity. Working between 30 and 39 hours per week was found to greatly enhance productivity both in the short and long term. Additionally, working between 15 and 29 hours per week showed a slight positive effect on productivity. Conversely, working more than 39 hours per week (between 40 and 45 hours) only increased productivity in the short term, while working less than 29 hours and exceeding 45 hours per week had a negative impact on labour productivity. These findings suggest that an optimal working schedule to maximise labour productivity is between 30 and 40 hours per week, with overtime not exceeding 5 hours per week. Establishing a proper schedule of weekly working hours is crucial for maximising labour productivity and reducing work-related stress, which can impede productivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Chama CHIPETA & Thomas HABANABAKIZE & Mulatu Fekadu ZERIHUN, 2024. "The Non-Agricultural Labour Productivity Effects of Working Time: South Africa’s Case," Management and Economics Review, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 9(1), pages 61-77, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:rom:merase:v:9:y:2024:i:1:p:61-77
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mer.ase.ro/files/2024-1/9-1-4.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Devicienti, Francesco & Grinza, Elena & Vannoni, Davide, 2015. "The Impact of Part-Time Work on Firm Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from Italy," IZA Discussion Papers 9463, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Junsoo Lee & Mark C. Strazicich, 2013. "Minimum LM unit root test with one structural break," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2483-2492.
    3. Ronald Burke, 2009. "Working to Live or Living to Work: Should Individuals and Organizations Care?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 84(2), pages 167-172, January.
    4. Francoise Delmez & Vincent Vandenberghe, 2018. "Long Working Hours Make Us Less Productive but Also Less Costly," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 32(4), pages 259-287, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bloch, Harry & Rafiq, Shuddhasattwa & Salim, Ruhul, 2015. "Economic growth with coal, oil and renewable energy consumption in China: Prospects for fuel substitution," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 104-115.
    2. Costas KARFAKIS & Constantinos KATRAKILIDIS & Eftychia TSANANA, 2014. "Does output predict unemployment? A look at Okun's law in Greece," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 153(3), pages 421-433, September.
    3. Kondoz, Mehmet & Kirikkaleli, Dervis & Athari, Seyed Alireza, 2021. "Time-frequency dependencies of financial and economic risks in South American countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 170-181.
    4. Phiri, Andrew, 2018. "Fiscal sustainability in BRICS countries: Evidence from asymmetric unit root tests augmented with Fourier fucntion," MPRA Paper 85501, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Chakraborty, Debashis & Mukherjee, Jaydeep & Lee, Jaewook, 2016. "Do FDI Inflows influence Merchandise Exports? Causality Analysis on India over 1991-2016," MPRA Paper 74851, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Nagayasu, Jun, 2011. "The threshold nonstationary panel data approach to forward premiums," MPRA Paper 34265, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Garg, Bhavesh & Prabheesh, K.P., 2021. "Testing the intertemporal sustainability of current account in the presence of endogenous structural breaks: Evidence from the top deficit countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 365-379.
    8. Perles-Ribes, José Francisco & Ramón-Rodríguez, Ana Belén & Rubia, Antonio & Moreno-Izquierdo, Luis, 2017. "Is the tourism-led growth hypothesis valid after the global economic and financial crisis? The case of Spain 1957–2014," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 96-109.
    9. Acaravici, Ali, 2010. "Structural Breaks, Electricity Consumption and Economic Growth: Evidence from Turkey," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(2), pages 140-154, July.
    10. Serena Brianzoni & Roy Cerqueti & Elisabetta Michetti, 2010. "A Dynamic Stochastic Model of Asset Pricing with Heterogeneous Beliefs," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 165-188, February.
    11. Giorgio Canarella & Stephen M. Miller & Stephen K. Pollard, 2010. "Unit Roots and Structural Change: An Application to US House-Price Indices," Working papers 2010-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2010.
    12. Çetin, Tamer & Yasin Eryigit, Kadir, 2013. "The economic effects of government regulation: Evidence from the New York taxicab market," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 169-177.
    13. Güriş, Burak, 2017. "A New Nonlinear Unit Root Test with Fourier Function," MPRA Paper 82260, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Jayanthakumaran, Kankesu & Verma, Reetu & Liu, Ying, 2012. "CO2 emissions, energy consumption, trade and income: A comparative analysis of China and India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 450-460.
    15. Hongbo Liu & Shuanglu Liang, 2019. "The Nexus between Energy Consumption, Biodiversity, and Economic Growth in Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC): Evidence from Cointegration and Granger Causality Tests," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(18), pages 1-15, September.
    16. Paraskevi Salamaliki & Ioannis Venetis, 2014. "Smooth transition trends and labor force participation rates in the United States," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 629-652, March.
    17. Efthyvoulou, Georgios, 2011. "Political cycles under external economic constraints: Evidence from Cyprus," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 638-662.
    18. Cumhur ÞAHÝN & Hüseyin ALTAY, 2016. "Examination of the Relationship between Turkey’s Credit Default Swap (CDS) Points and Unemployment," Eurasian Business & Economics Journal, Eurasian Academy Of Sciences, vol. 4(4), pages 52-67, January.
    19. Yu-Chen Zhang & Deng-Kui Si & Bing Zhao, 2020. "The Convergence of Sulphur Dioxide (SO 2 ) Emissions Per Capita in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-33, February.
    20. Balcilar, Mehmet & Usman, Ojonugwa, 2021. "Exchange rate and oil price pass-through in the BRICS countries: Evidence from the spillover index and rolling-sample analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    employment; labour productivity; working hours; working schedules; labour market.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rom:merase:v:9:y:2024:i:1:p:61-77. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ciocoiu Nadia Carmen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mnasero.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.