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Although most labor and microeconomic textbooks contain a theoretical discussion of the backward‐bending labor supply curve, scant empirical evidence of this phenomenon exists. In this paper we investigate the behavior of PGA golf professionals as they make labor‐leisure choices for performing on the PGA Tour. Using tournament theory to model this labor market and data from tournament performances over three seperate years, we find significant evidence that higher paid PGA Tour players do indeed operate in the backward‐bending region of their labor supply curves.

Some labor supply curves exhibit inflection points at which they bend backward or fall forward; thus, some workers alternate between increasing and decreasing their labor hours as wages increase. No consensus has yet been reached on the underlying motive for such behavioral inconsistencies. This paper aims to develop a unified theory to explain each of these variations in labor supply.

The author employs a simple model of labor supply with additively separable utility over income and leisure. The sub-utility function for income is of the Friedman-Savage type, exhibiting preferences that alternate between increasing and diminishing marginal utility of income.

Labor supply curves slope downward where relative risk aversion is strong, and upward where relative risk aversion is weak or negative. Thus, utility functions with inflection points can form the basis of labor supply curves with inflection points.

Friedman-Savage utility can explain virtually any observed labor supply functions, including convex, backward-bending, forward-falling, and inverted-S curves.

Inflection points on the labor supply curve can create multiple and unstable market equilibria. Labor-market policies, including legislation pertaining to minimum wages and collective bargaining, and policies to enhance education and economic security, may reduce aversion to risk and thereby decrease the prevalence of unstable equilibria.

This paper unites two lines of research – labor supply and Friedman-Savage utility – which have, rather remarkably, been separate to date. In doing so, it provides a new application of the classic Friedman-Savage paradigm, and a new explanation of labor supply curves with negatively-sloped regions.

To run a job guarantee public policy scheme, it is important to know the aspiration level or the reference point of labor, and accordingly, the labor hour and the wage sequence are to be prepared. The existing job guarantee schemes consider the same wage rates for all types of jobs. As a result, it is to identify the reference point. The present work aims to propose a job guarantee scheme where different types of jobs have different wage rates. The paper explains the choice problem between labor and leisure at different wage rates and proposes complete computational tools to be incorporated into the job guarantee schemes. The paper also gives a mechanism to prepare the list of jobs and corresponding wage rates by maintaining a balance between labor and leisure, where productive activities measure labor hours and labor welfare measures leisure hours. Lastly, the paper provides the analytical tools to interpret the ex-post data of the job guarantee public policy schemes.

The paper has been written based on the Coordination Game and its Welfare Implications in the job guarantee public policy schemes.

The present paper gives an initial work to measure the choice between labor and leisure for the different wage rates practically. This will help in getting the equilibrium strategies, namely, the combination of the labor hour and the wage rate between the policymaker and the labor. This method will help to implement the job guarantee schemes. For example, to run successfully the Basic Income policy, the basic income calculation should give due care; otherwise, there will be a downward trend in the basic income and the welfare of labor will be reduced, because the labor would have to supply excess labor to meet the target income.

This paper derives theories and explains how the equilibrium in this coordination game can be achieved. The paper explains how the policy of the job guarantee schemes can be practiced practically. In the MGNREGA scheme, the public institution declares different categories of jobs with different wage rates. The categories have been classified with respect to the hours required to complete the job. Therefore, the public institution declares different lists or a sequence of pairs of labor hours and wage rates. Moreover, the list is stochastic, because the list can be changed by the inclusion of an offer from the market as well. The labor has to select from the list. The challenge on the part of the public institution is to prepare the list in such a way so that the inclusion of the market offers will not distort the equilibrium of the coordination game. An important method has been proposed here to analyze the ex-post data of job offers so that the preparation of the future sequence of the job offers can be prepared with due care. One objective of the policymaker here is to make a list of job offers in such a way so that the labor supply will be converging to a point and that will not deviate if the wage rate increases further. This objective will make a balance of the distribution of funds between the existing registered labor and the new entrants into the job guarantee schemes.

This purpose of the study is to examine the labour supply decisions with respect to earnings and considers whether we are willing or indeed able to work less. The authors specifically focus on the three points of time, i.e. beginning of the sample, pre and post Global Financial Crisis.

The study regression analysis by utilises microdata from the UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) regarding individual hours worked in three separate survey periods: 1994q2, 2007q2 and 2015q2

The results suggest that we are far from income-satiated. The elasticity of hours worked with respect to earnings is stubbornly inelastic and for some demographic cohorts positive, implying the desire to work more. The authors find that job flexibility matters in facilitating reduced hours of work, but that jobs are not becoming more flexible. The authors also do see a secular reduction in hours worked, accompanied by a shift to working later in life, but these appear to be down to factors other than higher wages.

The study has important research implications in terms of understanding the dynamics of the labour market on the whole and in the pre and post global financial crisis periods.

The research has profound policy implication in terms of labour and employment policy.

There are important social implications, particularly in terms of household labour supply decisions and substitution between work and leisure.

The study has significant element of originality in terms of understanding the changing dynamics of labour market. This is the first study which has investigated the labour market in the light of empirical evidence and in the various time periods.

The purpose of this paper is to critically review the literature to assess the relevance of the S‐shaped model of family labor supply for industrialized countries.

Studies use a wide variety of methodologies and therefore are not readily comparable, but instead they cover a wide range of relevant factors such as historical trends, fringe benefits and home mortgages, ethnic differences, farm labor, low‐income households, child care, the impact of welfare benefits, and the problem of the measurement of work hours.

In spite of welfare systems that blur somewhat the predicted income effect at lower wage levels (forward falling segment primarily for women), this model appears to still bear some relevance for these countries, in particular in the face of declining real wages. Families have generally moved up higher along that curve, with less differentiated gender roles, women's stronger labor force attachment, and assortative mating of educated women.

The model is mostly relevant for LDCs and has far‐reaching practical consequences, while the review highlights the complexity of labor supply in industrialized countries.

This paper uses newly compiled data from two surveys of female home workers undertaken by the Women’s Industrial Council in London in 1897 and 1907 to investigate various issues related to their work and wages. The reports detail the occupations, average weekly earnings and hours, marital status, and household size, composition, and total income of approximately 850 female home workers, offering a unique, and as yet unused, opportunity to explore the labor market characteristics of the lowest-paid workers in the early twentieth century. Analysis of the data reveals that the female home workers who were surveyed were drawn overwhelmingly from poor households. Home workers were older than female factory workers, most were married or widowed, and the majority of married workers reported that their husbands were out of work, sick, disabled, or in casual or irregular work. Weekly wages and hours of work varied considerably by industry, but averaged about 7–9s. and 40–45 hours per week, with many workers reporting the desire for more work. The relationship between hours of work (daily and weekly) and hourly wages was negative, and the wives and daughters of men who were out of the labor force due to unemployment or illness tended to work longer hours at lower wages, as did women who lived in households where some health issue was present. These findings lend support to contemporary perceptions that women driven into the labor force by immediate household need were forced to take the lowest-paid work, whether because they lacked skill and experience or bargaining power in the labor market.

This study investigates the magnitude and possible determinants of gaps in the (paid) working hours of male and female heads of households.

The study utilises the Bauer and Sinning’s (2008) general decomposition method to examine the differences in work hours among male and female heads of households using data from the 2014 Barbados labour force survey.

Our estimates suggest that the employment hours of female heads of households is 3.6% less than that of their male equivalents, which translates to an annual hour differential of roughly 68 to 71 employment hours.

To date, very little is known about the disparity in the paid work hours of male and female heads of households. This study attempts to fill this gap in the literature. Moreover, by focussing on Barbados, this paper adds to the sparse body of work on sex-based inequalities in developing countries, particularly those in the Caribbean.

Labor supply data seldom include detailed information on hours and wages in secondary job or overtime work. Based on survey information on hours and wages in overtime work and second job which is merged to administrative register information on income taxes and deductions we estimate a “Hausman labor supply model,” which allows for a detailed treatment of nonconvexities. Including explicit information on overtime pay and second job wages increase the estimated elasticities compared to a standard labor supply model without this information. However, allowing a more flexible treatment of nonconvexities the estimated elasticities are reduced; even below the estimates of the baseline results. In simulations we show that these findings have significant consequences when evaluating the degree of self-financing of various tax reforms.

There is a lack of theoretical development on the question of why people work long hours and the nature of “workaholism”. This paper seeks to demonstrate a variety of reasons that induce a person to work “excessively”.

This paper discerns three subcategories of the “work enthusiast”: “materialist”, “the low‐leisure” and the “perkaholic” hard workers. It is demonstrated that these work enthusiasts work long hours for relatively high job satisfaction, while workaholics gain relatively low job satisfaction. Inflicting negative externalities on fellow workers is argued to be a separate issue – any one of the hard workers might irk their fellow workers by working “too hard” or by their individual mannerisms. This paper uses the economist's utility‐maximization model to build a conceptual model of voluntary work effort that explains the work effort decision of individuals.

Individuals will work long hours when motivated to do so by the satisfaction they derive separately and collectively from income (materialism); leisure; perquisites; and work per se. It is argued that only the person who is strongly motivated by the latter reason is properly called a workaholic, and that the imposition of negative externalities on co‐workers is a separate issue that might also involve work enthusiasts.

The paper advances the understanding of work motivation and workaholic behavior and presents a series of researchable propositions for empirical testing.

Within the framework of potential efforts and strategies to employment generation for young people in Africa in general and Ethiopia in particular, the agricultural sector is increasingly considered as an important sector and a valuable means for poverty reduction, the promotion of economic development, and youth's economic independence. Renewed hope is placed on the sector to offer sustainable livelihood prospects for the rural youth. Yet, the success and sustainability of the sector require a proper understanding of how households allocate youth labor time in the sector and whether agricultural labor supply is responsive to economic incentives such as shadow wages. Using gender- and age-specific plot-level panel data, we systematically analyze the impacts of shadow wages of each household member on youth agricultural labor supply across types of farms. The results indicate that agricultural shadow wages matter for the youth's labor supply in the sector, but the impact differs for male and female youth. We also show that trends and patterns of youth labor supply vary across gender and whether they work on their own farm, and so do their labor returns. The results are consistent after controlling for individual heterogeneity and instrumenting for possible endogeneity. Taking into account the intensity of youth's actual involvement in the family farm, own farm or off-farm work instead of their stated intentions, the results challenge the presumption that youth are abandoning agriculture, at least in agricultural potential areas of Ethiopia. Instead, the frequent narrative of youth disengaging from agriculture may be a result of methodological flaws or data limitations. The findings suggest that it is necessary to invest in agricultural development to enhance labor productivity and employability of young people in agriculture.