Juliane Scheffel

How Do Unusual Working Schedules Affect Social Life

The widening of the working hour distribution complicates the coordination of social leisure. This paper examines the short- and long-run impact of unusual working schedules on social life using German Time Use Data for 2001/02. I find evidence that younger workers with higher than median earnings seem to accept higher levels of solitary leisure as investment and because of the substantial wage premia. Younger workers tend to substitute sleep with free time. Older workers, in contrast, tend to sleep less which can be interpreted as elevated risk of mental and physical health.

Identifying the Effect of Temporal Work Flexibility on Parental Time with Children

It is recognized that employment policies must grant flexibility to theworking schedules to allow parents to reconcile family and work. By exploiting the particularity of the East German labor market, I identify the causal effect of temporal work flexibility on parental time with children. The analysis unambiguously shows that it allows parents to spend about 30 percent more time with their children. The results can be generalized to Germany as a whole. It can be concluded that temporal work flexibility can be used as a device to mitigate the adverse effect of parental employment on the child’s cognitive development.

Compensation of Unusual Working Schedules

This paper examines pecuniary aspects of work during unusual hours based on the German Time Use Data for 2001/02. The findings show positive wage premia of 9 – 10 percent for shift workers and men who work during unusual hours. There is some evidence of negative selection which suggests that men with lower potential daytime earnings have a higher propensity to choose these jobs because of the associated wage premium. The findings further show a U-shaped impact of temporal work disamenity across the wage distribution with higher wage premia paid to the extreme 5-percentiles.

Does International Outsourcing Depress Union Wages

In this paper, we provide first empirical evidence on the effect of outsourcing on union wages using linked employer-employee data for Germany. We find that low skilled workers experience a decline in the union wage premium when working in industries with high outsourcing intensities. The finding applies to both firm- and sector-level agreements. Hence, outsourcing appears to deteriorate the bargaining position of unions. Outsourcing is not found to have a negative effect on the wages of low skilled employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements. While wages of medium skilled workers are largely unaffected by outsourcing, high skilled workers see their wages rise in industries with a high level of outsourcing. There is no interaction between coverage and outsourcing for these skill groups.

A Note on the Effect of Outsourcing on Union Wages

We analyze the effect of outsourcing on union wages in a simple two-stage game between a firm and a union. In contrast to public perception the ease with which the firm can outsource parts of their production does not necessarily reduce the wage set by the union. Even in the simple model framework a surprisingly large number of conflicting effects is established.

Honey, I’ll Be Working Late Tonight: The Effect of Individual Work Routines on Leisure Time Synchronization of Couples

German time use data for 2001/02 are used to assess the impact of workplace characteristics on the private life of couples. The major aim is to solve the endogeneity resulting from individual preferences for work and leisure to identify the pure effects of the workplace independent from other diluting personal influences in a cross-sectional setting when no appropriate instruments are available. I propose a repeated random assignment of people into pseudo couples as a solution. By this approach, I am able to uncover additional marriage inherent mechanisms that result in a (de-)synchronization of joint time that are still family friendly.

Globalisation and Inter-Industry Wage Differentials in China

This paper explores the relationship between globalisation and inter-industry wage differentials in China by using a two-stage estimation approach. Taking advantage of a rich household survey dataset, this paper estimates the wage premium for each industry in the first stage conditional on individual worker and firm characteristics. Alternative measures of globalisation are considered in the second stage; trade openness and capital openness. The regressions do not reveal a significant relationship between overall trade (import and/or export) openness and wage premia. However, disaggregation of trade into trade in final and intermediate goods is shown to matter. Increases in import (export) shares of final goods reduce (increase) the wage premium significantly, whereas imports or exports of intermediate goods do not explain differences in industry wage premia. This finding is supported by stronger effects for final goods trade in coastal than non-coastal regions. Our results also show a positive relationship between capital openness and industrial wage premium, though this finding is less robust when endogeneity issues are allowed for.