The era of the 24-hour society?: assessing changes in work timing using a Japanese time use survey

Abstract

Using data from a Japanese time use survey, we show a noteworthy increase in the share of employees working at unusual hours (late night and early morning) over a period of a decade since the mid-1990s. When controlling for changes in hours worked, however, we find that the notable increase in the fraction of people at work at unusual hours was for low-income nonregular employees (part-time, temporary and contract workers) while relatively higher income regular employees' work timing remains stable. These observations imply that there is a trend of diversification of work timing in Japan between regular and nonregular employees. A possible explanation is that the increase in the average hours worked per weekday by regular employees, possibly because of the spread of the 5-day workweek since the 1990s, increased services and goods demand at unusual hours as they returned home. An Oaxaca–Blinder type decomposition suggests that such an increase in the average hours worked by regular employees explains partially the rise in the employment rate of nonregular employees at unusual times.

Keywords:

• hours worked
• work timing
• nonregular employees
• regular employees

JEL Classification: :

• J22
• J42

Acknowledgements

The microdata used in this article are data from the Survey of Time Use and Leisure Activities (Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). The authors thank the participants at the 31st International Association of Time Use Research (IATUR) Conference 2009 and Japanese Economic Association Annual Meeting 2009 for their valuable comments. The remaining errors are solely of our own. This research is supported by the Japanese government's grants in aid for young scientists B (Kuroda; Research No. 22730188) and Murata Science Foundation (Yamamoto).

Notes

¹ Unless noted otherwise, all analyses from this point forward are based on calculations using weights provided by the Statistics Bureau of the MIAC.

² Before 2000, large stores of more than 500 m² were under stringent control over opening hours by the Japanese government in order to protect local small shops, and thus large stores were unable to operate after 8:00 pm. After 2000, the legislation was deregulated, which enabled large stores to operate 24 hours per day in principle.

³ See Kuroda and Yamamoto (2011) for the results of the other times of the day.