Unpaid Work Time Research Articles

Various Dimensions of Personal and Professional Work Life Balance of Employees in Power Industry in India

In today’s organized sector, work- life balance assumes a critical importance as this facilitates the development of a productive work culture and minimization of tensions between work and other aspects of people lives. There are three key components that are needed to achieve a healthy lifestyle, namely paid work, unpaid work and personal time. Bringing a balance between all these there is the optimum one can accomplish. Power is among the most critical components of infrastructure, crucial for the economic growth and welfare of nations. The existence and development of adequate power infrastructure is essential for sustained growth of the Indian economy. The fundamental principle of India power industry has been to provide universal access to affordable power in a sustainable way. The purpose of this study is to highlight the necessity of adopting work-life balance in a power sector. The paper examines different elements of work-life balance especially with reference to employees working in power sectors.

Time poverty, health and health-related behaviours in a Southern European city: a gender issue

BackgroundDespite its growing interest, time poverty is a neglected issue in public health analysis and policies. The objectives of this study were: (1) to analyse gender differences in paid, unpaid...

Follow the money: Trucker pay incentives, working time, and safety

AbstractMost truck drivers experience economic pressure in the form of low pay rates, no pay for non-driving work time, and long work hours. Unpaid working time, leading to low effective pay rates, encourages drivers to work excessive hours to pursue target earnings, which leads to fatigue and working time violations, and ultimately raises crash rates. This paper explores the complex relationship between regulatory violations, pay incentives, and crashes, to determine the effects of economic forces on carrier safety. We use data from 13,904 intrastate trucking companies in the United States, as well as median hourly truck driver wages from data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We find that controlling for observed regulatory violations (hours of service, unsafe driving, and substance abuse), at the mean, 1% higher driver wages are associated with 1.04% fewer crashes. Stated differently, a 10% wage increase would be 5 times as effective as a 10% reduction in ‘unsafe driving’ or 2.5 times as effective as a 10% reduction in ‘driver fitness’ violations. This unit elasticity between driver pay and crashes suggests that higher compensation will bring direct and commensurate worker and public safety benefits. Every unit in higher pay, at the mean, will lead to a corresponding unit improvement in safety. Our findings suggest that the most effective way for regulators to pursue their mission to reduce crashes, fatal or otherwise, would be to collect firm-level data on truck driver compensation and allow their methodology to follow sound science.

The Gendered Impacts of Partnership and Parenthood on Paid Work and Unpaid Work Time in Great Britain, 1992–2019

AbstractUsing data from the British Household Panel Study and the UK Household Longitudinal Study (1992–2019), this study investigates the impacts of partnership and parenthood on women's and men's paid work and unpaid work time and how these impacts have changed in the last three decades in Great Britain. We applied two fixed‐effect models—one conventional, one novel—with individual constants and slopes to account for the selection and longitudinal changes in time use. We found that the gender‐traditionalizing effect of partnership on the use of time has weakened over the years. Marriage did not affect women's and men's paid work time, and since the 2010s, marriage no longer affect women's and men's time spent on housework differently. However, motherhood continues to reduce women's paid work time substantially, and the extent of this impact has remained unchanged over the previous three decades. Partnership and parenthood have resulted in minor changes to men's paid work and unpaid work time; the extent of their effects has likewise remained modest over the previous three decades. Our findings suggest that in Britain, the gender revolution of the division of labor among parents has stalled, and family policies have not successfully increased mothers’ paid work time and fathers’ unpaid work time.

Unpaid Work by Women: A State-level Analysis of Evidence from Time-use Survey

Low and declining female labour force participation in India over the past two decades has turned attention to the high unpaid work time spent by women. The question, however, remains whether women spend more time on unpaid work because there are not enough jobs or whether it is time spent on unpaid work that is holding them back from participation in the labour force. Against this backdrop, the present article explores India’s nationally representative time-use survey conducted by National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) to estimate factors that explain variations in time spent by women in unpaid work at the state level. The results show that structural transformation, entailing a reduction in employment in agriculture and an increase in the share of industries in state GDP, does not necessarily entail any reduction in unpaid time spent by women if the technology embodied in industrialisation is not gender-friendly. Worryingly, progress in female literacy recorded by states is no guarantee of a reduction in unpaid work by women. However, a gender-friendly atmosphere does make a difference in the reduction in unpaid work reported by women. Similarly, targeted public policy intervention does relax the constraints that women face at home, with a positive effect on unpaid work time.

Working longer hours and body weight: An Australian study using household panel data (with measures of paid and unpaid time) to provide gender-specific estimates

Time is a resource for health, and when time is constrained, people have less opportunity to maintain good health. This study focuses on the relationship between paid work hours (with a focus on long hours) and body weight for Australian men and women. Time is conceptualised as a 24-hour system, including time in paid work, time in unpaid work, and discretionary time (available for health promoting activities). We propose that to accurately estimate the relationship between long paid work hours and body weight, analyses need to take account of unpaid work hours, and that this is particularly important for women. Analyses utilised 16 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) panel study, with data on hours in paid and unpaid work and BMI at all waves (n = 113,084 observations, 54,664 from women and 58,424 from men). We used Mixed Effects models with a Two Stage Residual Inclusion (2SRI) approach to account for time unobserved heterogeneity and the reciprocity between time uses (paid and unpaid) and body weight. The results showed that for every 10 hours worked above the gender-specific average, women weighed 762 grms more and men weighed 1.34 kgs more. When the analyses were restricted to sedentary jobs this increased to 938 grms for women and 1.68 kgs for men. We contribute new evidence highlighting the importance of including unpaid work hours in research that aims to understand working time and health.

Technology and remuneration of working time: a study on paid and unpaid working time in platform work

Abstract In this article, we analyse platform-mediated work on the basis of the results of a qualitative study conducted in Argentina in the areas of delivery services and design. The guiding question of this research is how digital work processes change the relationship between paid and unpaid working times. To answer this question, we examine the remuneration system of two types of platforms, and we identify different forms of unpaid labour time in platform-mediated work. Two main conclusions arise from this analysis. On the one hand, we argue that platforms tend to legitimise some forms of unpaid labour time to the extent that workers assume them to be non-working time. On the other hand, we show that platform workers apply different strategies to try to include some of these forms of unpaid labour time in their final income.

Time poverty and gender in urban sub‐Saharan Africa: Long working days and long commutes in Ghana's Greater Accra Metropolitan Area

AbstractThis study uses a mixed‐methods approach and primary data to consider how the length of the working day in Ghana's Greater Accra Metropolitan Area is shaped by time in paid and unpaid work and commuting. The analysis investigates gender differences in the length of the working day and the incidence of time poverty, and explores the relationship between long working days, long and arduous commutes and well‐being. Women are found to be more time poor, and their longer hours of unpaid household caregiving and chores and more difficult commutes have consequences for their leisure time, family–life and health.

The enduring impact of the pandemic on gender patterns of paid and unpaid work: evidence from time-use data in Turkey

This paper examines changes in the gender patterns of paid and unpaid work in Turkey from the pre-pandemic period to the early pandemic phase under lockdown conditions and the late pandemic phase under relative normalization. We analyze data from three surveys fielded during these periods. We first adjust for demographic shifts during the pandemic to isolate the changes in paid and unpaid work. We then examine the impact of new work arrangements during the pandemic. Pooled regression analysis shows that paid work time has largely returned to pre-pandemic levels under partial normalization. Unpaid work time has decreased relative to the lockdown period, but it remains higher than pre-pandemic, particularly for women but also for men. The more enduring effects of the pandemic pertain to paid work, attitudes toward teleworking, and the provisioning of social care services. The share of teleworking has increased for women and men.

Compensation and crash incidence: Evidence from the National Survey of Driver Wages

AbstractCommercial motor vehicle driving is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. The production of most trucking services takes places on public roadways, which makes commercial motor vehicle safety a topic of concern for industry stakeholders, supply chain operations, policy makers, and the general public. This study explores the relationship between new employee driver compensation and for-hire interstate truckload motor carrier crash incidence. The results suggest that, all else constant, higher benefits are associated with fewer crashes. While mileage pay rates predict crashes, we find that higher mileage rates can be correlated with either higher or lower crash frequency – depending on the carrier’s existing starting pay level. This may be due to pernicious incentives created by piece-rate pay structures, because drivers who have more unpaid non-driving work time may earn a slightly higher mileage pay rate, which only partially compensates them for unpaid labour time. Regardless, these results suggest that compensation is an important predictor of safety and the existing pay practices in the industry may be unsafe. It also suggests that the role of compensation in motor carrier safety performance deserves further exploration with better quality data–especially full documentation of hours of work and pay rates.

Care Data Infrastructure: A U.S. Case Study

This essay emphasizes the need to critically evaluate sources of survey data available to assess interactions between paid and unpaid care provision, including the extent of substitutability between unpaid work time and money expenditures. While it focuses on the U.S., it provides a framework for analysis of data infrastructure in other countries that could facilitate international comparisons and policy analysis.

A Study on the Effects of Gendered Social Norms on the Tradeoff Between Paid and Unpaid Work in Korea.

In this study, Korean time-use survey data for coupled households is analyzed to show that unpaid work time is endogenous in its relationship with paid work time because the views of traditional gender roles affect gender disparity in unpaid work time. The data not only includes time allocation between husbands and wives but also their views of traditional gender roles within their households, and this information can represent gendered social norms that can potentially explain the distribution of unpaid work between husbands and wives. The control function model is estimated to identify the tradeoff between unpaid work time and paid work time by solving the endogeneity problem. The results of this study show that wives' unpaid work is likely to be affected by gendered social norms and that the effect can be larger for those having children. In addition, only in the case of wives, unpaid work time is found to be negatively associated with whether to work full-time, showing that wives' burden of unpaid work could prevent them from working full time. The results indicate that it is crucial to recognize the need to change gendered social norms to address an asymmetric division of unpaid work between husbands and wives.

Hourly Wages in Crowdworking: A Meta-Analysis

In the past decade, crowdworking on online labor market platforms has become an important source of income for a growing number of people worldwide. This development has led to increasing political and scholarly interest in the wages people can earn on such platforms. This study extends the literature, which is often based on a single platform, region, or category of crowdworking, through a meta-analysis of prevalent hourly wages. After a systematic literature search, the paper considers 22 primary empirical studies, including 105 wages and 76,765 data points from 22 platforms, eight different countries, and 10 years. It is found that, on average, microtasks results in an hourly wage of less than $6. This wage is significantly lower than the mean wage of online freelancers, which is roughly three times higher when not factoring in unpaid work. Hourly wages accounting for unpaid work, such as searching for tasks and communicating with requesters, tend to be significantly lower than wages not considering unpaid work. Legislators and researchers evaluating wages in crowdworking need to be aware of this bias when assessing hourly wages, given that the majority of literature does not account for the effect of unpaid work time on crowdworking wages. To foster the comparability of different research results, the article suggests that scholars consider a wage correction factor to account for unpaid work. Finally, researchers should be aware that remuneration and work processes on crowdworking platforms can systematically affect the data collection method and inclusion of unpaid work.

The Contribution of Girls’ Longer Hours in Unpaid Work to Gender Gaps in Early Adult Employment: Evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam

Across many countries, girls perform more unpaid work than boys. This article shows how the time young women and girls spend in unpaid household work contributes to the gender pay gap that is already evident by age 22. The study analyzes employment participation, type of employment, and wages using five waves of the Young Lives longitudinal survey for Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam. Spending longer hours in unpaid household work in adolescence positively predicts later employment participation but has a scarring effect in negatively predicting job quality (that is a job with a private or public organization) and hourly earnings, particularly for women. Blinder–Oaxaca decompositions of the gender wage gap show young women’s penalty for past household work is due to longer hours of such work rather than a higher penalty for women for a given amount of unpaid work. HIGHLIGHTS Participation in unpaid household work and paid work is gendered from a young age. Time in unpaid household work as children impacts young adults’ employment. Time in household work in adolescence is linked to lower job quality in adulthood. Girls’ longer hours in household work contribute to the gender wage gap. Girls spend less time than boys in play or leisure at all ages.

Accounting for the Value of Unpaid Domestic Work: A Cross-National Study of Variation across Household Types

Abstract This article estimates the value of extended earnings—market earnings plus the imputed value of unpaid work—and assesses how this alternative measure affects the level and distribution of economic wellbeing within households of differing compositions. Prior research finds that excluding the value of unpaid work distorts conclusions about women’s contributions to household income and inequality more generally. Variation across household types has been understudied. The authors use data from the Harmonized European and American Time Use Surveys, combined with income data from the Luxembourg Income Study Database, to assess outcomes in six European countries and the United States. The study compares market to extended earnings to assess inequality within and across household types: single adults with and without children, and cohabiting adults with and without children. Key findings include: (i) women's time in unpaid work exceeds men's in all study countries; (ii) shifting from market earnings to extended earnings narrows gender disparities in all countries; and (iii) moving to extended earnings reduces inequality among both women and men, but more so among women. On all outcomes, we find that household composition shapes women's outcomes more than men's, and, overall, parenting status plays a larger role than partnership status.

Влияние безусловного базового дохода на сферу занятости населения в оценках российских экспертов

The issue of universal basic income (UBI) has been gaining importance due to the growth of precarious employment, unemployment and inequality in the context of the development of digital technologies, especially considering the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences. The article first presents the generalised and systemised reasoned opinions of Russian experts on UBI in order to examine its potential impact on employment. The initial research data resulted from a survey of different groups of Russian experts conducted by the authors. This information was supplemented by the results of various mass surveys. It was revealed that a significant part of Russian experts have concerns that UBI can negatively affect work incentives and labour supply. The systematisation of expert assessments allowed the research to create scenarios of the potential impact of UBI on population employment and work incentives, formal and informal employment, the ratio between paid and unpaid work, working and free time, the quality of leisure time. The study findings can be used as information and analytical support for the state policies aimed at improving the level and quality of life of the population, as well as making decisions on the appropriateness of UBI tools (including in Russia). Future research will examine in detail the impact of universal basic income on the labour market parameters, taking into account socio-demographic factors.

Telecommuting and gender inequalities in parents' paid and unpaid work before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

ObjectiveThis study examines the relationship between telecommuting and gender inequalities in parents' time use at home and on the job before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic.BackgroundTelecommuting is a potential strategy for addressing the competing demands of work and home and the gendered ways in which they play out. Limited evidence is mixed, however, on the implications of telecommuting for mothers' and fathers' time in paid and unpaid work. The massive increase in telecommuting due to COVID‐19 underscores the critical need to address this gap in the literature.MethodData from the 2003–2018 American Time Use Survey (N = 12,519) and the 2020 Current Population Survey (N = 83,676) were used to estimate the relationship between telecommuting and gender gaps in parents' time in paid and unpaid work before and during the pandemic. Matching and quasi‐experimental methods better approximate causal relationships than prior studies.ResultsBefore the pandemic, telecommuting was associated with larger gender gaps in housework and work disruptions but smaller gender gaps in childcare, particularly among couples with two full‐time earners. During the pandemic, telecommuting mothers maintained paid work to a greater extent than mothers working on‐site, whereas fathers' work hours did not differ by work location.ConclusionIn the context of weak institutional support for parenting, telecommuting may offer mothers a mechanism for maintaining work hours and reducing gender gaps in childcare, while exacerbating inequalities in housework and disruptions to paid work.

Productivity of Working at Home and Time Allocation Between Paid Work, Unpaid Work and Leisure Activities During a Pandemic

Background and ObjectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken by governments to contain it have affected many aspects of the daily lives of citizens. This study aimed to describe changes in the productivity of paid work and time allocation to paid and unpaid work and leisure resulting from working at home during the pandemic.MethodsA sample of 851 people from the Netherlands who had paid work (≥ 24 h/week) and worked at least 4 hours per week extra at home because of lockdown measures completed a questionnaire during the first COVID-19 lockdown (April 2020). Respondents reported time spent on paid and unpaid work and leisure before and during the lockdown. Productivity was measured in terms of quantity and quality of paid work.ResultsOn average, respondents spent less time (14%) on paid work and productivity decreased 5.5%. Changes in productivity were associated with the age of children, net income and having a separate home office. Respondents spent more time on unpaid work (27%) and leisure (11%). Women spent more time on unpaid work in absolute but not in relative terms. People with a partner and with children spent more time on unpaid work and less time on leisure.ConclusionsProductivity of paid work decreased, and people reallocated time between paid and unpaid work and leisure during the first COVID-19 lockdown. Changes in time allocation and productivity differed across subgroups. If working at home becomes more common, future research should focus on the long-term impact on productivity and mental and physical health.

Work Time Matters for Mental Health: A Gender Analysis of Paid and Unpaid Labor in the United States

Based on Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) survey data for 2013–14, this paper examines the association between work time (inclusive of both paid and unpaid work time) and the mental health outcomes of men and women in the United States, controlling for economic and social buffers, education, and demographic factors. In the United States, even though women constitute close to half of the paid labor force, they still perform the lion’s share of unpaid work. The findings indicate that total work time is positively related with emotional distress for women, while there is no statistically significant relationship for men. For women, the relationship between work time and mental health is primarily driven by unpaid work rather than paid work. Evaluating the relationship between mental health and both productive and reproductive work is critical to develop effective public policies toward gender equity and social well-being. JEL classification: I14, J16, J01

Married Adults Coresiding with Older Parents: Implications for Paid Work and Domestic Workloads

The rise of life expectancy throughout the developed world has meant that older adults play an increasingly important role in their grown-up children’s lives. We evaluate whether the intergenerational solidarity theory is useful for understanding the intergenerational transfers of time in Japan given the relatively generous welfare provision for the older adults and the fall in intergenerational coresidence. We apply seemingly unrelated regression models to data of the 2006 Japanese Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities (Statistics Bureau Japan, 2006) to investigate how coresidence patterns are associated with paid and unpaid work time of adult married children. The sample contains 23,226 married couples where both husband and wife are aged 20 to 59. We find evidence of intergenerational solidarity in coresident households. We also find that “doing gender” is layered through intergenerational exchanges of support between married working-age children and their older parents. Working-age women’s time use patterns are associated with coresidence arrangements and care needs of their older relatives to a much greater extent than working-age men’s. The observed patterns are consistent with healthy older women supporting their daughters’ careers in exchange for care when they need help themselves. For working-age men, the patterns are not very pronounced. Notably, working-age husbands without children appear to be more responsive to their older the parents’ care needs, suggesting that fatherhood may be associated with solidifying gendered role performance within Japanese couples.