The Working Times They Are A-Changing: Trends in Six EU countries (1992-2022)

The time Europeans devote to paid work has been consistently reduced since the Industrial Revolution. However, since the 1980s, the pace of this trend has slowed. The aim of this article is twofold: first, we develop a theoretical framework to account for the main factors determining the evolution and distribution of working hours in Europe; second, we exploit the EU-LFS data (1992-2022) to analyze the main factors explaining recent developments in working time. The results indicate: 1) that reductions in working time are primarily attributable to an increased prevalence of non-standard forms of work, mainly part-time work; 2) that part-time work has expanded mainly due to the feminization of employment and tertiarisation; 3) that full-time workers continue to work more or less the same hours as in the 1980s, given that there are countervailing effects pushing up (occupational upgrading and tertiarization) and down (the expansion of public services, the shrinking of the goods-producing sector, and self-employment becoming less time-intensive) the time they devote to work; and 4) that the self-employed work less because part-time self-employment has become more prevalent, although the self-employed continue doing the longest workweeks. Theoretical and empirical implications arising from these findings are discussed, as well as potential avenues for future research.