Hour Mismatches (Gaps between Preferred and Actual Hours of Work)

My dissertation focused on mismatches between workers' preferred and actual work hours.  Researchers interested in involuntary part-time work (ex. Tilly 1999) and "overwork" (ex. Schor 1999) have studied specific kinds of mismatches that have gained particular salience in the U.S.  My dissertation cast involuntary part-time work and "overwork" as specific manifestations of a more general phenomenon: the inability of employees to work the number of hours they prefer.  It also examined hours mismatches from a cross-national perspective by using data from the 1997 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) to examine hours mismatches in the United States, Japan, Sweden, and the former West Germany.

The central questions of my dissertation were:

1) How does the institutional environment (ex. government, unions, culture) affect the distribution of mismatches?

2) What are the individual level determinants of hours mismatches?

3) To what extent do hours mismatches affect an employee's attitudes and behavior at work.

I have continued studying hour mismatches and their determinants (especially work-life conflict), and I have also begun to examine how and why hour mismatches are created and resolved over time.  My data come from several source: the 1997 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the 1998 General Social Survey (GSS), the 1997 and 2002 waves of the National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey.

As I continue to study work hours, I find myself drawn more and more to the literature on work & family.  I am especially interested in how work-family conflict influences preferred and actual hours of work and thus hour mismatches.  I have written several papers that combine my interests in work hours with research on work-family issues.

Papers about this topic

Reynolds, Jeremy and Lydia Aletraris. Forthcoming.  “Work-family Conflict, Children, and Hour Mismatches in Australia.”  Journal of Family Issues.

Reynolds, Jeremy and Lydia Aletraris.  Forthcoming. “For Love or Money?:  How and Why Extrinsic Rewards, Intrinsic Rewards, and Work-family Issues Influence Hour Mismatches.”  Research in the Sociology of Work, 17.

Reynolds, Jeremy. 2005.  “In the Face of Conflict: Work-Life Conflict and Desired Work Hour Adjustments.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(5), 1313-1331.

Reynolds, Jeremy and Linda Renzulli. 2005.  “Economic Freedom or Self-imposed Strife: Work Hours, Work-Life Conflict, and Self-employment.”  Research in the Sociology of Work, 15, 33-60.

I am also interested in the evolving organization of work including the use of "high performance" work practices and how such practices influence workplace inequality.  I am particularly interested in why the use of such practices varies from job to job within organizations.

Papers about this topic

Kalleberg, Arne L., Peter Marsden, Jeremy Reynolds, and David Knoke. Forthcoming.  “Beyond Profit?:  Sectoral Differences in High Performance Work Practices.” Work and Occupations.

Reynolds, Jeremy.  Forthcoming.  “You Get Paid for That?: Job And Establishment Level Variations in the Use of Incentive Compensation.” Research in the Sociology of Work, 16, 117-149.

Reynolds, Jeremy.  2006.  “Teams, Teams Everywhere?:  The Use of Work Teams within U.S. Establishments.”  Social Science Research, 35(1), 252-278.

Non-standard Employment Arrangements
 

Finally, I have written a few papers about non-standard employment relationships.  These emerging employment arrangements also have implications for inequality, and like high performance work, they can have both good and bad features.  Their net contribution to workers well-being is thus hard to evaluate and is likely to vary considerably depending from one type of worker (e.g., a young single mother) to another (e.g., an older married woman)

Papers about this topic

Wenger, Jeffrey, and Jeremy Reynolds.  “Older Workers and Nonstandard Jobs: Health, Health Insurance, and Employment Decisions among Older Married Couples.”  Under review.

Kalleberg, Arne L., Jeremy Reynolds, and Peter Marsden.  2003.  “Externalizing Employment:  Flexible Staffing Arrangements in U.S. Organizations.”  Social Science Research, 32(4), 525-552.

Kalleberg, Arne L. and Jeremy Reynolds. Forthcoming.  “Work Attitudes and Nonstandard Work Arrangements in the United States, Japan and Europe.”  In Susan Houseman and Machiko Osawa (editors), Growth of Non-Standard Work Arrangements (Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research). 

Kalleberg, Arne L. and Jeremy Reynolds.  2000. “Organization Size and Flexible Staffing Arrangements in the United States.”  In Françoise Carré, Marianne A. Ferber, Lonnie Golden, and Stephen A.Herzenberg (editors), Nonstandard Work: The Nature and Challenges of Changing Employment Arrangements.  Champaign, IL: Industrial Relations Research Association.