Working the Night Shift: The Impact of Compensating Wages and Local Economic Conditions on Shift Choice

The theory of compensating differentials asserts that night shift workers should receive compensating wage differentials due to undesirable work conditions. In weak local economies, workers may have difficulty finding jobs; thus, these workers might be more likely to accept night shift work and be l...

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Veröffentlicht in:Economics research international 2014-01, Vol.2014, p.1-15
Hauptverfasser: Trent, Colene, Mayer, Walter J.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:The theory of compensating differentials asserts that night shift workers should receive compensating wage differentials due to undesirable work conditions. In weak local economies, workers may have difficulty finding jobs; thus, these workers might be more likely to accept night shift work and be less concerned with the size of the compensating differential for night shifts. Using CPS data from 2001, this paper employs maximum likelihood estimation of an endogenous switching regression model to analyze wages of day and night shift workers and shift choice. The findings indicate the presence of selection bias, thus emphasizing the importance of correcting for self-selection into night shifts. The average of the estimated wage differentials for night shift work is negative for the overall sample, with differentials varying by worker characteristics. The shift differential is found to be a statistically significant predictor of shift choice, indicating that shift premiums play an important role in motivating individuals to select night shift work. Using two measures of local economic conditions and a new method of analyzing interaction effects in the context of an endogenous switching regression model, this paper finds limited evidence that weak local economic conditions lessen the impact of compensating differentials on shift choice.
ISSN:2090-2123
2090-2131
DOI:10.1155/2014/632506