Research On Workers' Working Time Allocation And Its Effect

The difference of workers’ wages is an important field of economic research.The wage formation mechanism and its reasonable difference reflect the labor productivity and the important embodiment of effective allocation of labor resources by market.At the same time,it is an important way to understand the income distribution by studying the wage difference and its formation mechanism.It is of great strategic meaning for our country to study the wage gap of laborers.Li Shi et Al.(2019)analyzed the trend of urban wage gap since 1995 using CHIP data,showed that the Keeny coefficient of China’s wage gap rised from 0.29 to 0.38——the urban wage gap has continued to expand.In China,many studies about the wage gap among workers were based on human capital theory,wage discrimination theory,labor market segmentation theory,the wage sector differences,urban-rural differences and gender differences.As an important factor affecting the wage gap,the interaction between workers’ effort and individual ability had not been paid enough attention to.In fact,during the past 40 years of reform and opening up,China’s economic development has made great achievements.In 2020,China’s gross domestic product(GDP)has passed 100 trillion yuan,and the per capita GDP exceeded 10,000 US dollars.According to the theory of Labor supply,workers will allocate time between work and leisure.When the per capita income of a country reaches a certain level,workers would be willing to increase the supply of working hours only with a strong incentive will.Although China’s per capita income has surpassed that of middle-income countries,the 2014 China Labor Market Development Report showed that about 30%workers regularly work overtime,which is much higher in China than that in the whole world(Lai Desheng,Meng Dahu,Li Changan,Wang Qi,2014).The scholars believed that the Chinese people have the excellent quality of diligence,work hard and lay the solid foundation in the economic development miracle during the reform and opening up.Therefore,it is necessary and meaningful to study the degree of Labor effort and the interaction between effort and individual ability on wage differences.In most domestic literatures,the excessive labor and overtime work(mainly for urban migrant population and migrant workers)have been discussed to prevent and manage Excessive Labor.In fact,overtime work is also common among workers in major labor markets.Hard work is not only an important means of personal development,but also the embodiment of individual social values and the source of a better life.Happiness needs to be earned.Hard work should be paid back with higher worker’s salary and the better opportunity for further education.We believe that the level of hard work of workers has a positive impact on their productivity and wages in two aspects.Firstly,the selection effect.The working time is an important reflection of the worker’s effort.The previous literatures were based on the assumptions that the work is homogeneous and the work position and the labor force are homogeneous.The homogeneity is mainly reflected in the fact that the work is lossy.Overtime work will affect the health of workers.Work should be “hated”.The key to workers’ happiness is not the length of their working hours,but the nature of their working hours.Some workers are willing to work hard,based on strong achievement motivation,good physical quality and strong personal ability.They take the initiative to choose overtime work in order to improve individual productivity and get higher wages.This means that hard work is a "productivity signal".The task of this thesis is to investigate these specific conditions under which workers would choose to work overtime—— the productivity signaling effect.Secondly,diligence can make up for the effect of clumsiness.According to the theory of "learning by doing" in economics,the practice of producing and trying to solve problems will greatly promote the development of production.If a person is more diligent and can spend more time at work,he/she can achieve better results(better productivity and higher wages)at work than those who doesn’t.Therefore,we believe that hard work will help workers themselves to accumulate more experience,thus enhancing their own labor productivity.Therefore,the core of this paper is to reveal the reasons for hard work and overtime by studying the interaction mechanism of Labor’s working effort,personal ability,productivity and wage rate from the perspective of working hours under the condition that both labor and work are heterogeneous.At the same time,the productivity characteristics of working time choice are discussed.This study is helpful to understand the characteristics and changing trend of working time of laborers in China,and to grasp the relationship between economic growth and overtime work.It also helps us accumulate more knowledge about overtime work and labor supply theory,enrich the wage formation mechanism based on existing literature,scientifically answer how hard work and personal success are linked,make up for the current literature,and evaluate current wage gap between workers.This thesis mainly includes the following three aspects.The first one is the relationship between working hours and wages.First of all,the change trend of working hours of Chinese workers from 1989 to 2015 was analyzed based on the China health and nutrition survey database(CHNS).The report analyzed the differences of working time according to different gender(male/female),household register,occupation and work unit,and verified the hypothesis that there is heterogeneity in working time choice.At the same time,using the classic Minser equation to construct the model,the thesis empirically studied the characteristics of the educational return rate of the working time choice of the workers,and found that there is a significant positive correlation between the length of education and the wage.Obvious differences in the return rate of education among the workers,such as household registration,occupation,educational background,gender and type of enterprise can be found.Then also,based on the Heterogeneity of work and worker,this thesis set up a worker’s wage model and empirically analyzes the influence of the interaction items of working time,years of education,working time-years of education interactive term on the wage.The second one is the factor of the wage impact on working time choice.Firstly,from the perspective of heterogeneous work and heterogeneous workers,based on the family production model of new family economics created by Gronau(1977)and Becker(1965),a theoretical model was constructed to study the influence factors of wage on working time choice.Secondly,in view of the possible endogenesis of wages and working hours,a simplified model was established by controlling the wage variables.Finally,by using the theoretical model and the 2SLS model,this thesis empirically analyzed the factors influencing the working time choice of workers.The results showed that the wage level has a significant positive effect on the working time choice.This regulation pattern variants with household register,sex,occupation,education level and unit nature.The third one is the relationship between working hours,wages and household arrangements for Chinese urban residents.First,through the CHNS data,the characteristics of housework time and the changing trend of husband and wife’s relative housework ratio were analyzed.The gender difference in domestic work is very obvious in our country.The average ratio of husband to wife is less than 40%.The traditional "men dominate the outside world,women cover the house" domestic work mode is still the mainstream.There is also a tendency to narrow the gap in the relative household work rate between husband and wife.Secondly,from the perspective of the Division of Labor between husband and wife to carry out household work,this thesis empirically studied the relationship between household work and working time,as well as the relationship between household work pattern and family income.The working time of the laborer had a significant negative influence on the housework time,the working time of the spouse had a significant positive influence on the housework time of the laborer,the longer the working time of the spouse,the more the laborer’s own housework time.This fully showed that urban workers’ attitude towards housework is a kind of division of Labor and Cooperation,and the "cooperative family model" of equal sharing of housework between husband and wife represents the evolution direction of housework model.The Regression Coefficient of housework time to wage was almost 0.The influence of hourly wage on Housework Time is limited,the relative rate of housework is almost independent of the couple’s salary,which shows that family has the role of "harbor" in workers’ mind.The innovation of this thesis is mainly embodied in the following aspects.1.Work and workers are with Heterogeneity.Not all work has a loss,not all workers are regarded as the work "hated".Through the empirical analysis of the model,the study found that the working hours of Chinese workers show significant occupational and work unit heterogeneity.This thesis verified the hypothesis that there is heterogeneity in the choice of working time of workers and jobs in China.2.Based on the Heterogeneity of workers and work,this paper studies the interaction mechanism of workers’ effort,personal ability and wage rate from the perspective of working time choice,to reveal the reasons for hard work and overtime.Through the empirical analysis of the model,the study found that,there are significant differences in wage between the different gender,work units,occupations and household registration.There is a significant positive correlation between the length of education and wage.There are significant differences in the rate of return on education among the workers,such as household registration,sex,education level and the nature of the work unit.3.Under the condition that workers can choose their work and working time,according to the theory of "learning by doing" and labor market signal transmission,choosing overtime work is the signal of workers with higher productivity under certain conditions.This study found that,among all urban workers in China,choosing overtime work is not a sign of excellent labor force.But,among managers of private enterprises or workers with college or higher education,choosing to work overtime may be a sign of a good worker.Truly,due to the limitation of samples and indicators,this thesis had not included the indicators of workers’ ability,such as cognitive ability and non-cognitive ability into the research framework.Further investigation is needed about the interaction mechanism between overtime work and ability,wages,etc..