The Cross-National Policy Comparisons Project makes available summaries of public policy provisions related to diverse facets of working time. At the heart of this project is a series of comparative tables that synthesize policy provisions that shape:

  • the duration of the average work day;
  • the length of the average work week;
  • the number of days worked per year;
  • the availability and quality of part-time and reduced-hour work; and
  • the ease with which workers can adjust their work schedules.

Working time policies vary substantially across countries. Assessing that variability informs multiple stakeholders - employers, workers, researchers and policy-makers alike – about the scope of public policy options available, as well as the details of policies that are actually operating. The goal of this project is to raise awareness of, and knowledge about, working time policies and flexible work arrangements.

This project – part of a larger project on working time across countries – was sponsored by the Sloan Foundation.

key research questions

The Cross-National Policy Comparisons enables research on the following questions:

  • Across a group of mostly high-income countries, what public policies are in place that influence working time – specifically by shaping how many hours are worked, when those hours are worked, and how various working time options are compensated?
  • How exactly to those policies operate?
   

publications

contact

For questions and more information about the Cross-National Policy Comparisons, contact:

Chad Minnich, Assistant Director, Marketing/Communications
minnicch@bc.edu  |   +1 . 617 . 552 . 3122

Or please email agework@bc.edu with comments; we invite your feedback.

   

cross-national policy comparisons team

To schedule a conversation with any of our staff, please contact Chad Minnich, Assistant Director, Marketing & Communications, at 617-552-3122, or minnicch@bc.edu.

Janet C. Gornick, PhD

 

Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center at the City
University of New York (CUNY)

Janet C. Gornick is Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate Center, at the City University of New York. She is also Director of the Luxembourg Income Study, a cross-national research institute and data archive based in Luxembourg. Most of her research is comparative, across the industrialized countries, and concerns social welfare and labor market policies and their impact on family well-being and gender equality. Her core interest is in public programs that affect parents' capacity to combine employment with caregiving, such as child care, paid family leave, the regulation of working time, and income supports targeted on families with children. More recently, she has studied policy supports for older workers. She holds a PhD in Political Economy and Government from Harvard University.

border

Ariane Hegewisch

 

Study Director
Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR)

Ariane Hegewisch is a study director, working on workplace discrimination and work life balance, at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. She is a specialist in comparative human resource management, with a focus on policies and legislative approaches to facilitate greater work life reconciliation and gender equality in higher income economies. Prior to coming to the USA she taught comparative European human resource management at Cranfield School of Management in the UK and worked as a policy advisor on gender and employment in local government in the UK. She is German and holds a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and an MPhil in Development Studies from the IDS, Sussex. She is also an international associate of the Center for WorkLife Law, U.C Hastings.

border