Distinctions between Overemployment, Overwork, Workaholism, and Heavy Investments in Work Time

This chapter explores the role of incentives, explicit and implicit, in determining a worker’s preferred number of hours. The former refers to extrinsic motivation, such as a monetary bonus for extra production. The chapter focuses on over employment, the inability to reduce one’s work hours toward preferred shorter hours, despite a willingness to sacrifice some pay. It examines potential returns on investment in time not only in work time but in “non-work” time. The chapter aims to distinguish several separate types of non-work time uses, which are work-related and may have investment-type properties, such as “productive leisure.” A comprehensive model of individuals’ time devoted to work would incorporate the economic, psychological, physiological, social, and cultural sources of workers’ constraints and preferences. The chapter concludes by exploring implications of the over employment findings and types of excessive work hours and non-work time uses for future research, both empirical and theoretical.