Working Less to Work Better?[Travailler moins pour travailler mieux ?]

This document explores the relationship between individual reductions in working hours, through part-time employment, and working conditions. Numerous studies have suggested that part-time workers do not necessarily enjoy better working conditions than their full-time counterparts. Often, their occupations and sectors of activity are specific, making it difficult to interpret the relationship between working hours and working conditions. To address this, we propose a fixed-effects regression estimation method using panel data from the Working Conditions Surveys of 2013, 2016, and 2019. The transition from full-time to part-time work is associated with improved working conditions in certain dimensions, particularly physical constraints, time-related constraints, and work intensity. However, this shift is accompanied by increased socio-economic insecurity. The improvement in working conditions is more pronounced and affects a wider range of dimensions when the reduction in working hours is greater. By analyzing changes in working hours more precisely—based on the number of hours and days worked per week—the estimates consistently indicate that reducing the number of days worked without reducing the total number of hours does not significantly affect working conditions, except in terms of time-related constraints.