Leave saving options over the life course – only for the highly skilled? Evidence from two German best-practice companies

ABSTRACT

Individual leave saving options provide new options to employees to improve their employability and work–life balance over the life course. They are based on a simple idea: Employees can deposit overtime hours or portions of due remuneration in a time credit account and withdraw them at a later point in time in order to take prolonged periods of leave for care, training, or leisure activities. It is the leading question of this article as to what extent and in which way these options are factually used by different categories of employees. By reviewing existing studies in the Netherlands and by analysing German employee data the article reveals constraints in the accessibility of leave saving options. On the basis of transaction cost theory hypotheses are formulated regarding different uses of leave saving options by age, gender, and occupational status. These hypotheses are tested using regression analysis and employee data from two German best-practice companies. They show evidence for significant restrictions in terms of a high degree of selectivity with regard to age, skill and income levels. Based on these findings recommendations for future research and working time policies are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Working hours
• life course
• paid leave
• work–life balance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Philip Wotschack is Senior Researcher in the Research Unit Skill Formation and Labor Markets at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. He graduated in Sociology at the Free University of Berlin where he worked as researcher and lecturer. From 2000 until 2005 he was researcher at the Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) at the University of Groningen (Netherlands). Since 2005 he has been researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, where he worked in the Research Units Labor Market Policies and Employment and Skill Formation and Labor Markets. Research areas are work organization, working hours, lifelong learning, and work–family arrangements.

Notes

1. For reasons of space, it is not possible to present the regression tables relating to credit volumes. They are available from the author on request.