Flexible working hours: Benefit or burden? A study of occupational differences in five European countries

Working hours and locations are becoming increasingly flexible for many employees. Still, employees’ opportunities to flexibly organise their working hours and location largely depend on their occupational position. Despite these notions, only a few systematic empirical studies have been conducted on the distribution of flexible working hours for different groups of workers. In order to carry out an in-depth analysis across occupations, this article distinguishes between employee-centred and employer-centred forms of flexible working hours. It examines which groups of employees benefit more from flexible working hours and which are predominantly burdened by the flexibility demands of their employers. The analysis is based on the EU Labour Force Survey 2019 ad hoc module on working hours and working arrangements and was conducted for five countries representing different working time regimes. The results show that higher-skilled workers can organise their working hours much more flexibly than lower-skilled workers. Employer-centred flexibility is also generally more common among higher-skilled employees. Employees in social services with medium or low qualifications are particularly affected by employer-centred flexibility while having little to no flexibility of their own.