Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast (Nov 2019)
Working Hours in Russia: Employment Models and Choice Factors
Abstract
The paper classifies and investigates working hours in order to identify the structure of their distribution and factors determining their distribution in Russia. Assessment of the situation regarding working time is relevant in conditions of non-standard employment when it is necessary to search for ways to improve productivity. Our article adds to well-known publications that focus on the analysis of working hours and miss the important point that the same number of working hours can be implemented under different working time schemes, which entails, for example, different options for regulation and protection of employees’ rights. We design a conventional standard model of employment in Russia based on the frequency of occurrence of each of the three time parameters of employment (the number of working hours per week and per day, and the number of working days per week). We find out that this model represents a 40-hour work week with 5 working days and 8 working hours per day. According to the regression analysis of the microdata of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey – Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE), we identify factors that increase the probability of employment under this model, namely: availability of an employment contract, work in companies with state participation, employment in management bodies. While regional trends remain heterogeneous, the conventional standard model continues to spread, but it has not yet become the predominant model of working hours. We show that the growth of balance in the use of working hours is accompanied by processes that do not contribute to economic competitiveness, evenness of regional development and the quality of human potential in Russia. The results we obtain enrich the knowledge about the actual working time schemes used in Russia and can serve as a basis for making substantiated decisions to identify the reserves of working time and find ways to optimize it. Further research can analyze the quality of employment under different working hours
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