A Two-Stage Optimal Matching Analysis of Workdays and Workweeks

Laurent Lesnard (1, 2, 3) , Man Yee Kan (4)

1 OSC - Observatoire sociologique du changement (Sciences Po, CNRS)
2 CDSP - Centre de données socio-politiques de Sciences Po (Sciences Po, CNRS)
3 CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique
4 CTUR - Centre for Time Use Research

We study the scheduling of work by using optimal matching analysis. We show that optimal matching can be adapted to the number of periodicities and theoretical concerns of the topic by adjusting its costs and parameters. Optimal matching is applied at two stages to define workdays and workweeks at the first and second stage respectively. There were five types of workdays and seven types of workweeks in the UK between 2000 and 2001. Standard workdays represented just over a half of workdays and standard workweeks constituted one in four workweeks. There were three types of part-time workweeks.

Keywords: Cost; Optimal matching; Time use; Two-stage optimal matching; Work schedule; Work time

Domains: Sociology

Laurent Lesnard, Man Yee Kan. A Two-Stage Optimal Matching Analysis of Workdays and Workweeks. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A Statistics in Society, 2011, 174 (2), pp.349-368. ⟨10.1111/j.1467-985X.2010.00670.x⟩. ⟨halshs-00657226⟩