IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v29y2015i4p550-570.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The gender gap in employment hours: do work-hour regulations matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Liana Christin Landivar

Abstract

In all developed countries, women, especially mothers, work fewer paid hours than their spouses. However, the magnitude of the gender gap varies significantly by country, ranging from 2 to 20 hours per week in this study. Using data from the 2002 International Social Survey Programme, this article investigates whether work-hour regulations have a significant effect on household allocation of paid labour and gender work-hour inequality. Two main types of work-hour regulations are examined: standard weekly work hours and the maximum allowable weekly work hours. Results show that households in countries with shorter maximum weekly work hours had less work-hour inequality between spouses, as each additional allowable overtime hour over the standard working week increased the work-hour gap between couples by 20 minutes. These results indicate that couples’ inequality in work hours and gender inequality in labour supply are associated with country-level work-hour regulations.

Suggested Citation

  • Liana Christin Landivar, 2015. "The gender gap in employment hours: do work-hour regulations matter?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 29(4), pages 550-570, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:29:y:2015:i:4:p:550-570
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017014568139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017014568139
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0950017014568139?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1992. "The Gender Earnings Gap: Learning from International Comparisons," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(2), pages 533-538, May.
    2. Esping-Andersen, Gosta, 1999. "Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198742005.
    3. Julie Brines, 1993. "The Exchange Value of Housework," Rationality and Society, , vol. 5(3), pages 302-340, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dinh, Huong & Strazdins, Lyndall & Welsh, Jennifer, 2017. "Hour-glass ceilings: Work-hour thresholds, gendered health inequities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 42-51.
    2. Li, Jianghong & Akaliyski, Plamen & Schäfer, Jakob & Kendall, Garth & Oddy, Wendy H. & Stanley, Fiona & Strazdins, Lyndall, 2017. "Non-linear relationship between maternal work hours and child body weight: Evidence from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 186, pages 52-60.
    3. Wanger, Susanne, 2017. "What makes employees satisfied with their working time? : The role of working hours, time-sovereignty and working conditions for working time and job satisfaction," IAB-Discussion Paper 201720, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].

    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. Landivar, Liana Christin, 2017. "The Gender Gap in Employment Hours: Do Work-Hour Regulations Matter?," SocArXiv xbwnj, Center for Open Science.
    2. Francois Nielsen & David Bradley & John D. Stephens & Evelyne Huber & Stephanie Moller, 2001. "The Welfare State and Gender Equality," LIS Working papers 279, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    3. Hadas Mandel, 2010. "Winners and Losers: The Consequences of Welfare State Policies for Gender Wage Inequality," LIS Working papers 550, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    4. Budig, Michelle J. & Misra, Joya & Boeckmann, Irene, 2016. "Work-family policy trade-offs for mothers? Unpacking the cross-national variation in motherhood earnings penalties," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 43(2), pages 119-177.
    5. Kaitlin Alper, 2019. "Income, Familialism and Women’s Economic Independence," LIS Working papers 766, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. Torsten Lietzmann & Corinna Frodermann, 2023. "Gender Role Attitudes and Labour Market Behaviours: Do Attitudes Contribute to Gender Differences in Employment in Germany?," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 373-393, April.
    7. Tanja Hethey & Margarita Est vez-Abe, 2008. "How Policies Affect Women's Economic Position within the Family: Labor Market Institutions and Wives' Contribution to Household Income," LIS Working papers 505, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. Ngai, L. Rachel & Pissarides, Christopher A., 2009. "Welfare policy and the distribution of hours of work," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 28698, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Sam Hickey & Tom Lavers & Miguel Niño-Zarazúa & Jeremy Seekings, 2018. "The negotiated politics of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-34, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Joanna Tyrowicz & Lucas van der Velde, 2017. "When the opportunity knocks: large structural shocks and gender wage gaps," GRAPE Working Papers 2, GRAPE Group for Research in Applied Economics.
    11. Alison L. Booth, 2006. "The Glass Ceiling in Europe: Why Are Women Doing Badly in the Labour Market?," CEPR Discussion Papers 542, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    12. Frances McGinnity & Emma Calvert, 2008. "Yuppie Kvetch? Work-life Conflict and Social Class in Western Europe," Papers WP239, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    13. Maria Iacovou, 2013. "The relationship between incomes and living arrangements: variation between countries, over the life course, and over time," ImPRovE Working Papers 13/15, Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp.
    14. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8807 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Armando Aliu & Bekir Parlak & Dorian Aliu, 2015. "Hybrid structures: innovative governance, judicial and sociological approaches," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 1747-1760, July.
    16. Erik Stam & Roy Thurik & Peter van der Zwan, 2010. "Entrepreneurial exit in real and imagined markets," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 19(4), pages 1109-1139, August.
    17. Svenja G rtner, 2013. "German Stagnation vs. Swedish Progression: Gender Wage Gaps in Comparison, 1960-2006," LIS Working papers 586, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    18. Töpfer, Marina, 2017. "Detailed RIF decomposition with selection: The gender pay gap in Italy," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 26-2017, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    19. Lepinteur, Anthony & Flèche, Sarah & Powdthavee, Nattavudh, 2016. "My Baby Takes the Morning Train: Gender Identity, Fairness, and Relative Labor Supply Within Households," IZA Discussion Papers 10382, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Seán Ó Riain & Amy Erbe Healy, 2024. "Workplace regimes in Western Europe, 1995–2015: Implications for intensification, intrusion, income and insecurity," Economic and Industrial Democracy, Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden, vol. 45(2), pages 415-446, May.
    21. Ilaria Rocco & Davide Girardi, 2024. "Giovani, background migratorio e ingresso nel mercato del lavoro regionale," ECONOMIA E SOCIET? REGIONALE, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2024(1), pages 87-101.

    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:sae:woemps:v:29:y:2015:i:4:p:550-570. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    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.