working hours of white-collar workers in terms of work characteristics and personal characteristics

In order to explore factors causing long working hours, we conducted a survey by interview targeting white-collar workers and reanalyzed data obtained through the survey by questionnaire that we had conducted previously. The results of the interview suggest that the length of working hours vary depending on (i) work characteristics, such as ways of working and relationships with customers, (ii) management of the working staff of a company, such as the workforce and working hours, and (iii) personal characteristics of each worker, such as their willingness to work. We analyzed the factors (i) and (iii), which can be ascertained quantitatively by using surrogate indicators. As a result, we found out that work characteristics affect male workers to some extent, while personal characteristics have rather clear influences on both male and female workers. That is to say, the strength of one’s work-oriented attitude affects the length of the total actual working hours.