Working Hour Arrangements and Working Hours – A Microeconometric Analysis Based on German Time Diary Data

The labour market providing individual resources and economic well-being is still a topic in the economic and social policy discussion. In the course of time the traditional full-time work is diminishing, new labour arrangements are discussed (keyword: flexible labour markets). This study will contribute to the discussion of working hour arrangements by quantifying patterns of explanation of ‘who is working when within a workday’. In particular we want to disentangle certain working hour patterns and the final hours of work according to those different patterns allowing for market and non-market influences. The daily working hour patterns are analysed by two dimensions: the fragmentation of a working day (by the number of working episodes) and the timing of work time by location of those episodes within the day’s period. Deducting such patterns allows not only to describe possible workday interruptions and workday behaviour in general, but to give hints for which groups of the society non-traditional working time is important. Once quantified, labour market policy has a sound base for a targeted policy