Dissecting the Decline in Average Hours Worked in Europe

IMF Working Papers, January 12, 2024

Source details

Canonical URL

Dissecting the Decline in Average Hours Worked in Europe

Other formats

• Markdown version
• Structured JSON version
• Bundle manifest

Bibliographic details

• Authors: Diva Astinova, Romain A Duval, Niels-Jakob H Hansen, Ben Park, Ippei Shibata, Frederik G Toscani
• Published: January 12, 2024
• Series: IMF Working Papers
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9798400261183.001

Key findings

• Three years after the COVID-19 crisis, employment and total hours worked in Europe fully recovered, but average hours per worker did not.
• The decline in average hours worked:
  • (i) is not cyclical but predominantly structural, extending a long-term trend that predates COVID-19,
  • (ii) mainly reflects reduced hours within worker groups, not a compositional shift towards lower-hours jobs and workers,
  • (iii) is driven by men—particularly those with young children—and youth,
  • (iv) shows that declines in actual hours match declines in desired hours.
• Overall assessment: there is scant evidence of slack at the intensive margin in European labor markets, and the trend fall in average hours worked seems unlikely to reverse.

Drivers and distributional patterns

• Within-group reductions in hours are the main source of the decline, rather than changes in workforce composition.
• Demographic and household characteristics matter:
  • Men, especially those with young children, are a primary contributor to the drop in average hours.
  • Youth also play a prominent role in driving the decline.
• Actual and desired hours move together, indicating preferences or constraints have shifted alongside realized hours.

Policy implications and quantitative impact

• Targeted policy reforms could raise actual hours towards desired levels for specific groups:
  • Reforms aimed at involuntary parttimers.
  • Reforms supporting women with young children.
• Estimated aggregate impact of such reforms on average hours would be limited to 0.5 to 1.5 percent.

Scope, methods, and publication notes

• Subject areas: Gender, Labor, Labor force participation, Labor markets, Labor supply, Population and demographics, Women.
• Keywords used in the analysis include: Europe, full time worker, hours worked, Labor force participation, labor market, Labor markets, Labor supply, policy reform, scant evidence, summary statistics, Women, worker level, working hours.
• Pages: 44.

IMF Working Paper No. 2024/002 (January 12, 2024).

Content in this bundle

• Working Paper
  • Working Paper (Markdown version)
  • Working Paper (PDF)