Studies of workers engaged in patterns of long working hours increasingly draw on working-time preference data from large-scale surveys, in particular data on the ‘match’ or ‘mismatch’ of current working hours and preferred working hours. These data are useful, but they are weakened by the common instability of answers to simple working-time preference questions. This article reviews the existing discussion of the causes and implications of this instability. It takes advantage of a small programme of in-depth qualitative interviews in order to examine more closely expressions of working-time preferences among long hours workers. The interview results reveal widespread ambivalence, linked to the fact that employees hold multiple, often conflicting ideas, in particular around the feasibility of a reduction in their working hours. The results point to the need for a careful combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in the study of the causes of long working hours.
ABS [Australian Bureau of Statistics] (2000) Employment Arrangements and Superannuation April to June 2000, Cat. no. 6361.0. Canberra: ABS.
2.
ABS (2007) Employment Arrangements, Retirement and Superannuation, Australia, April to July 2007, Cat. no. 6361.0. Canberra: ABS, customized data supplied on request.
BielenskiHBoschGWagnerA (2002) Working Time Preferences in Sixteen European Countries. Dublin: European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
5.
BöheimRTaylorM (2004) Actual and preferred working hours. British Journal of Industrial Relations42(1): 149–166.
6.
BoschGLehndorffS (2001) Working-time reduction and Employment: Experiences in Europe and economic policy recommendations. Cambridge Journal of Economics25(2): 209–243.
7.
BryanM (2007) Free to choose? Differences in the hours determination of constrained and unconstrained workers. Oxford Economic Papers59(2): 226–252.
8.
CampbellI (2007) Long working hours in Australia: Working-time regulation and employer pressures. The Economic and Labour Relations Review17(2): 37–68.
9.
ConnidisIMcMullinA (2002) Sociological ambivalence and family ties: A critical perspective. Journal of Marriage and the Family64(3): 558–567.
10.
CraigSMartinezMKaneJ (2005) Core values, value conflict, and citizens’ ambivalence about gay rights. Political Research Quarterly58(1): 5–17.
11.
CromptonRHarrisF (1998) Explaining women’s employment patterns: ‘Orientations to work’ revisited. The British Journal of Sociology49(1): 118–136.
12.
DonnellyR (2006) How ‘free’ is the free worker? An investigation into the working arrangements available to knowledge workers. Personnel Review35(1): 78–97.
13.
DragoRWoodenMBlackD (2009) Long work hours: Volunteers and conscripts. British Journal of Industrial Relations47(3): 571–600.
14.
DruckmanJLupiaA (2000) Preference formation. Annual Review of Political Science3(1): 1–24.
15.
DuncanS (2006) Mothers’ work-life balance: Individualized preferences or cultural construction? In: PerronsDFaganCMcDowellLRayKWardK (eds) Gender Divisions and Working Time in the New Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 127–147.
16.
van EchteltPGlebbeekALindenbergS (2006) The new lumpiness of work: Explaining the mismatch between actual and preferred working hours. Work, Employment and Society20(3): 493–512.
17.
van EchteltPGlebbeekAWielersRLindenbergS (2007) The puzzle of unpaid overtime: Can the time greediness of post-Fordist work be explained? In: Van der LippeTPetersP (eds) Competing Claims in Work and Family Life. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 125–141.
18.
FaganC (2001) Time, money and the gender order: Work orientations and working-time preferences in Britain. Gender, Work and Organization8(3): 239–266.
19.
FaganC (2004) Gender and working time in industrialized countries. In: MessengerJ (ed.) Working Time and Workers’ Preferences in Industrialized Countries: Finding the Balance. London/New York: Routledge, 108–146.
20.
FaganCWaltheryP (2011) Individual working-time adjustments between full-time and part-time working in European firms. Social Politics18(2): 269–299.
21.
FeatherPShawD (2000) The demand for leisure time in the presence of constrained work hours. Economic Inquiry38(4): 651–661.
22.
FongC (2006) The effects of emotional ambivalence on creativity. The Academy of Management Journal49(5): 1016–1030.
23.
GoldenL (2006) Overemployment in the United States: Which workers are willing to reduce their work-hours and income? In: BoulinJ-YLallementMMessengerJMichonF (eds) Decent Working Time: New Trends, New Issues. Geneva: International Labour Office, 209–234.
24.
GoldenL (2009) A brief history of long work time and the contemporary sources of overwork. Journal of Business Ethics84(2): 217–227.
25.
GoldenLAltmanM (2008) Why do people overwork? Oversupply of hours of labour, labor market forces and adaptive preferences. In: BurkeRCooperC (eds) The Long Work Hours Culture: Causes, Consequences and Choices. Bingley: Emerald, 61–83.
26.
GreenF (2006) Demanding Work: The Paradox of Job Quality in the Affluent Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
27.
HobsonB (2011) The agency gap in work-life balance: Applying Sen’s capabilities framework within European contexts. Social Politics18(2): 147–167.
28.
ILO [International Labour Office] (2009) Key Indicators of the Labour Market, 6th edn.Geneva: ILO.
29.
KelliherCAndersonD (2010) Doing more with less? Flexible working practices and the intensification of work. Human Relations63(1): 83–106.
30.
KuhnT (2006) A ‘demented work ethic’ and a ‘lifestyle firm’: Discourse, identity, and workplace time commitments. Organization Studies27(9): 1339–1358.
31.
LautschBScullyM (2007) Restructuring time: Implications of work-hours reductions for the working class. Human Relations60(5): 719–743.
32.
LeeS (2004) Working hour gaps: Trends and issues. In: MessengerJ (ed.) Working Time and Workers’ Preferences in Industrialized Countries: Finding the Balance. London: Routledge, 29–59.
33.
LeeSMcCannD (2006) Working time capability: Towards realizing individual choice. In: BoulinJ-YLallementMMessengerJMichonF (eds) Decent Working Time: New Trends, New Issues. Geneva: International Labour Office, 65–91.
34.
LewisS (2003) The integration of paid work and the rest of life: Is post-industrial work the new leisure?Leisure Studies22(4): 343–355.
35.
LewisSGamblesRRapoportR (2007) The constraints of a ‘work-life balance’ approach: An international perspective. The International Journal of Human Resource Management18(3): 360–373.
36.
McDonaldPBradleyLGuthrieD (2006) Challenging the rhetoric of choice in maternal labour-force participation: Preferred versus contracted work hours. Gender, Work and Organization13(5): 470–491.
37.
McRaeS (2003) Constraints and choices in mothers’ employment careers: A consideration of Hakim’s Preference Theory. British Journal of Sociology54(3): 317–338.
38.
MoenPWethingtonE (1992) The concept of family adaptive strategies. Annual Review of Sociology18: 233–251.
39.
PerlowL (1998) Boundary control: The social ordering of work and family time in a high-tech corporationAdministrative Science Quarterly43(2): 328–357.
40.
PhilpBSlaterGHarvieD (2005) Preferences, power, and the determination of working hours. Journal of Economic Issues39(1): 75–90.
41.
PocockB (2005) Work-life ‘balance’ in Australia: Limited progress, dim prospects. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources43(2): 198–209.
42.
PrattM (2000) The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: Managing identification among Amway distributors. Administrative Science Quarterly45(3): 456–493.
43.
ReynoldsJ (2004) When too much is not enough: Actual and preferred work hours in the United States and abroad. Sociological Forum19(1): 89–120.
44.
ReynoldsJAletrarisL (2006) Pursuing preferences: The creation and resolution of work hour mismatches. American Sociological Review71(4): 618–638.
45.
ReynoldsJAletrarisL (2007) For love or money? Extrinsic rewards, intrinsic rewards, work-life issues, and hour mismatches. In: RubinB (ed) Workplace Temporalities (Research in the Sociology of Work, volume 17). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 285–311.
46.
ReynoldsJAletrarisL (2010) Mostly mismatched with a chance of settling: Tracking work hour mismatches in the United States. Work and Occupations37(4): 476–511.
47.
RobinsonJMartinSGlorieuxIMinnenJ (2011) The overestimated workweek revisited. Monthly Labor ReviewJune: 43–53.
48.
SenA (1999) Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
49.
SjöbergO (2010) Ambivalent attitudes, contradictory institutions: Ambivalence in gender-role attitudes in comparative perspective. International Journal of Comparative Sociology51(1–2): 33–57.
50.
SmelserN (1998) The rational and the ambivalent in the social sciences: 1997 Presidential Address. American Sociological Review63(1): 1–16.
51.
WalshJ (1999) Myths and counter-myths: An analysis of part-time female employees and their orientations to work and working hours. Work, Employment and Society13(2): 179–203.
52.
WalshJ (2007) Experiencing part-time work: Temporal tensions, social relations and the work-family interface. British Journal of Industrial Relations45(1): 155–177.
53.
WaltersS (2005) Making the best of a bad job? Female part-timers’ orientations and attitudes to work. Gender, Work and Organization12(3): 193–216.
54.
van WanrooyB (2005) Adapting to the lifecourse? Evaluating men and women’s working-time preferences. Australian Journal of Labour Economics8(2): 145–162.
55.
van WanrooyBWilsonS (2006) Convincing the toilers? Dilemmas of long working hours in Australia. Work, Employment and Society20(2): 349–368.
56.
van WanrooyBOxenbridgeSBuchananJJakubauskasM (2007) Australia at Work: The Benchmark Report. Sydney: Workplace Research Centre.
57.
van WanrooyBJakubauskasMBuchananJWilsonSScalmerS (2008) Working Lives: Statistics and Stories. Sydney: Workplace Research Centre.
58.
WoodenMDragoR (2009) The changing distribution of working hours in Australia. In: CorbettJDalyAMatsushigeHTaylorD (eds) Laggards and Leaders in Labour Market Reform: Comparing Japan and Australia. London: Routledge, 67–81.
59.
ZallerJFeldmanS (1992) A simple theory of the survey response: Answering questions versus revealing preferences. American Journal of Political Science36(3): 579–616.
