Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/228112 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IES Working Paper No. 30/2020
Publisher: 
Charles University in Prague, Institute of Economic Studies (IES), Prague
Abstract: 
On September 1, 2014, Georgia enacted a one-time, immediate policy shifting public office working hours from 10:00-19:00 to 9:00-18:00 and affected the work schedules of all subjected employees. Due to professional scheduling conflicts faced by women with household responsibilities, some members of parliament believed that the new hours may be "family friendly", i.e. convenient for combining career and household activities, and increase female labor participation. The policy affected approximately 200,000 employees, but had never been evaluated, nor had any similar policy in any economic literature. Given that the policy did not affect the private sector, we employed a difference-in-differences approach using the National Statistics Office of Georgia Households Incomes and Expenditures Survey from 2013 - 2016. We find that the policy did not lead to more women working in the public sector, but did end up leading to an increase in female working hours. It was not through the expected channel, but rather through the taking up of the reduced working hours of employees with children that had been working over 40 hours, especially by married women without children, followed by unmarried without children, and by part-time employees with children. Effectively, the policy directly reduced the engagement of full-time employees with children and slightly increased the engagement of part-time employees with children. It did not directly increase female labor participation. As male working hour engagement was most negatively affected and those hours were mostly taken up by females, it could be argued that the policy did, indirectly, have a positive impact on gender equality in the labor market and, possibly, even domestically.
Subjects: 
policy evaluation
one-time & immediate policy implementation
Georgia
Georgian
work schedule
working hours
engagement
gender inequality
household distribution of labor
intra-familial bargaining
intra-household bargaining
labor participation
female labor participation
family friendly
personal professional conflict
career and household activities
work-life balance
gender differences in market and home labor
gender wage gap
asymmetric effects by gender and family type
labor market barriers
difference-in-differences
private sector
public sector
public service efficiency
JEL: 
I38
J21
J22
J23
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.