Working hours in most countries have been falling over the last 50−100 years. IZA World of Labor author Peter Dolton writes that there are numerous potential drivers of this trend, including: changing demand conditions, shifts in preferences over labor−leisure trade-offs, active pressure from employee trade unions, technological advances improving workplace productivity, enlightened governments introducing maximum working hours legislation, and demographic changes in the pattern of work by men and women. 

For many countries, there has been a steady, slow decline in working hours over time (Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the UK, and the US). But there are countries that have experienced variable demand for labor and hours of work, namely: Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. 

Despite the overall declining trend in working hours, there is still huge variation across countries; why is this? 

• Article: The effect of the internet on voting behavior (Deutsch) (Español) by Stephan Heblich

• Opinion piece: Cognitive performance in the home office—What professional chess can tell us by Steffen Künn, Christian Seel, Dainis Zegners

• News story: Declining working-age population is a major problem for the US economy, study finds

• Key topic page: What is economic inequality?

• Video: The impact of Covid-19 in South Africa: Haroon Bhorat in conversation with Daniel S. Hamermesh

• Does employee ownership improve performance? (Deutsch) by Douglas Kruse

• Measuring poverty within the household (Deutsch) by Caitlin Brown, Rossella Calvi, Jacob Penglase and Denni Tommasi

• How to attract international students? (Deutsch) by Arnaud Chevalier

• 56th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Economics Association - 3-5 June 2022 - Ottawa, Canada 

• 21st IZA/SOLE Transatlantic Meeting of Labor Economists (TAM) - 8-9 June 2022 - Online

• EAERE 27th annual conference - 28 June - 1 July 2022 - Rimini, Italy

• 5th IDSC of IZA Workshop: Matching Workers and Jobs Online - New Developments and Opportunities for Social Science and Practice - 16-17 September (Submission Deadline 31 May) 

• 2nd IZA Workshop: Climate Change and Human Wellbeing - 26 September 2022 (Submission Deadline 30 June)