Économie et Statistique n° 376-377 - 2004 The shorter working week
The determinants behind employees' attitudes to the shorter working week
Gilbert Cette, Nicolas Dromel et Dominique Méda
Although many papers have already looked at the economic repercussions of the shorter working week policies, especially in terms of employment, few studies to date have addressed the effects of these policies on the working and living conditions of the employees concerned. A number of studies have focused on employee expectations of a shorter working week (ex-ante analyses), but much less on the employees' perception and assessment of it once it is in place (ex-post analyses). This question of factors of employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction with a shorter working week policy, the effects of which employees have experienced directly, is studied in more detail here with an analysis of the answers to the 2001 RTT et Modes de Vie (Shorter Working Week and Lifestyles) survey of a sample of full-time employees on a shorter working week under a «Robien» our «Aubry 1» agreement for at least one year. A large number of variables is taken into account to evaluate the influence of each one «other things being equal».