Analysis On The Inflencing Factors Of Labor Time In China

As an external form of measuring labor quantity,working time is not only related to the amount of surplus value,but also related to the protection of worker’s rights and interests.In "Das Kapital",Marx studied the working day and revealed the phenomenon that capitalists arbitrarily extended the working hours of workers in pursuit of surplus value.As a socialist country,China has always attached great importance to the protection of workers’ physical and mental health and comprehensive development.However,in recent years,the phenomenon of working overtime in all walks of life in society is becoming more and more common,and even a lot of it is "compulsory overtime" and "unpaid overtime",which has a great negative impact on the majority of workers.According to Marx’s working day theory,the length of working day is affected by many factors.Marx pointed out that the working day of workers is composed of two parts: necessary labor time and surplus labor time.The minimum limit of working day is compensation for labor value,and the highest limit is a variable.Besides being restricted by body and morality,the length of working day is also influenced by social factors such as labor value,labor productivity,labor force contrast and so on.In recent years,the labor time of Chinese workers has been extended.There are realistic reasons and foundations behind it,among which the change of ownership has become the deepest institutional reason.Under the coexistence of multiple ownerships,private capital chooses to extend working hours to reduce operating costs out of the pursuit of profit,and some state-owned enterprises have no choice but to extend working days under the pressure of market competition.At the same time,the formation of working days is affected by relatively low labor productivity,long-term imbalance between labor supply and demand,weak labor organization strength and increase in enterprise labor costs.Based on the data of CHNS database from 1991 to 2015,the empirical analysis of the working days of Chinese workers shows that compared with the workers in non-public enterprises,the working hours of workers in public enterprises are significantly reduced.In addition,income,occupation type,education level,region,age,gender and so on all have an impact on the working hours of workers.The larger the size of the work unit,the higher the income,the shorter the years of education,and the younger the age,the longer the working hours will be.Compared with the central and western regions,the workers in the eastern region have longer working hours.The "blue collar" work longer hours than the "white collar".Men work longer hours than women.In order to better protect the rights and interests of workers and reasonably regulate working hours,the government,enterprises and society should make joint efforts to eliminate the realistic soil of excessively long working hours in China.First,we should strengthen the correct guidance to the non-public sector of the economy.Second,we should improve the legal guarantee,strengthen supervision and standardize the labor and employment system.Third,we should intensify innovation and improve labor productivity.Finally,we should strengthen the strength of workers’ organization and perfect the collective consultation system.