Oxford Scholarship Online: Working Hours and Job Sharing in the EU and USA

Working Hours and Job Sharing in the EU and USA Are Europeans Lazy? Or Americans Crazy? Boeri, Tito Professor of Economics, Bocconi University, Milan Burda, Michael Professor of Economics, Humboldt University Berlin Kramarz, Francis Head of the Research Department at CREST-INSEE and Associate Professor at Ecole Polytechnique Print publication date: 2008 (this edition) Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: May 2008 Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-923102-7
8 Work-Sharing, Part-Time Employment, and Childcare doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231027.003.0012 Francis Kramarz Pierre Cahuc Bruno Crépon Oskar Nordstörm Skans Thorsten Schank Gijsbert van Lomwel André Zylberberg Abstract: This chapter gives an overview of how work-sharing was implemented in the Netherlands. It shows that its employment effects were limited. However, work-sharing in the early 1980s was responsible for an unprecedented level of part-time employment in the Netherlands. This chapter is organized as follows. First, it discusses how work-sharing was implemented in the Netherlands. It then discusses the employment effects of work-sharing, especially regardng part-time employment. The influence of public policy and social values on labour force participation is considered. Keywords: working hours, the Netherlands, part-time employment, public policy, social values,