A significantly larger share of employed U.S. men is now regularly putting in long work weeks than two decades ago. For example, the share of employed, 25-64-year-old men who usually work more than 50 or more hours per week on their main job rose from 14.7 to 18.5 percent between 1980 and 2001. This trend has been especially pronounced among highly skilled men, with the long-hours share rising from 22.2 to 30.5 percent among college-educated men employed full-time (30 hours or more).

The recent rise in the prevalence of long work hours is puzzling for at least two reasons. One is the fact that it reverses, for essentially the first time, a trend towards shorter work weeks that goes back at least a century-- a trend that is widely attributed by labor economists to rising prosperity. Second, the rise in hours occurred during a period when a second key dimension of male labor supply –the labor force participation rate— moved in the opposite direction. What factors might have caused this century-long trend towards shorter work weeks to change direction, especially among the most highly skilled workers in the U.S. economy? And how can the trend towards longer work weeks be reconciled with declining male labor force participation?

This paper is based on primary data from the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups, from 1979 to 2004.

Peter Kuhn andt Fernando Lozano:   The Expanding Workweek? Understanding Trends in Long Work Hours Among U.S. Men, 1979-2004

Source: IZA (Institute for the Study of Labour), Bonn