Abstracts
The rise of the platform economy has raised concerns about workers’ conditions and job satisfaction. In this study, we examine the relationship between working hours and job satisfaction using unique data from on-demand delivery couriers. Our analysis shows that long working hours negatively affect job satisfaction, particularly among those with prior full-time employment, limited courier experience, third-party recruitment, and marital status. To address endogeneity concerns, we employ an instrumental variable approach, using monthly precipitation and working hours of peers as instruments, which confirms the robustness of our findings. The mechanism analysis further suggests that the negative effect of long working hours is mediated by factors such as physical health status and career identity. Our study highlights the need for regulatory measures to protect platform economy workers from excessive workloads and to enhance job satisfaction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines long working hours as working more than 55 hours per week. This specific threshold is supported by joint estimates by the WHO and the International Labor Organization (ILO), which attribute significant health risks, including life-threatening conditions such as stroke and heart disease, to such long hours.
The NCYS surveyed the common diseases related to platform workers, including varicose veins, gastroenterology, cell phone syndrome, pneumoconiosis, sore throat, chronic fatigue syndrome, cervical spondylosis, lumbar intervertebral disc herniation, heart attack, clinical depression, fatty liver, etc. We construct the variable common diseases as 1 if a courier suffers from any of these conditions.
For more detailed descriptions of the NCYS, please refer to the Appendix A.
Refer to the 2020 Meituan’s report Employment Report for Mission Riders During the 2019 and 2020 Epidemics. https://mri.meituan.com/research/report?typeCodeOne=5.
According to previous literature, the relationship between working hours and job satisfaction may be represented by a non-linear, possibly inverted U-shaped curve (Zhang et al, 2023). Thus, our study also examines this relationship in the context of platform employment. The results are presented in Table 10. The quadratic term results suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship, with the peak of satisfaction occurring between 10-20 hours per week. This suggests that for most couriers working more than 20 hours per week, satisfaction tends to decline with additional hours, even after accounting for the compensating effect of income. Thus, we use the logarithm of working hours as the dependent variable as it simplifies the instrumental variable analysis.
We estimated the marginal effect on the probability of attaining the highest level of job satisfaction (job satisfaction = 10) to facilitate comparison.
In China, the legal age of marriage for males is 21 years or older. Therefore, we limit the age range of couriers in this regression analysis to between 21 and 45.
References
Angrist, J. D., Caldwell, S., & Hall, J. V. (2021). Uber versus taxi: A driver's eye view. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 13(3), 272–308. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20190655
Becker, G. S. (1965). A Theory of the Allocation of Time. The Economic Journal, 75(299), 493–517.
Berger, T., Frey, C. B., Levin, G., & Danda, S. R. (2019). Uber happy? Work and well-being in the ‘gig economy’. Economic Policy, 34(99), 429–477. https://doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eiz007
Beynon, M. J., Heffernan, M., & McDermott, A. M. (2012). Psychological Contracts And Job Satisfaction: Clustering Analysis Using Evidential C-Means And Comparison With Other Techniques. Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management, 19(4), 247–273. https://doi.org/10.1002/isaf.1334
Booth, A. L., & Van Ours, J. C. (2008). Job satisfaction and family happiness: the part-time work puzzle. The Economic Journal, 118(526), F77–F99. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02117.x
Callea, A., Urbini, F., & Chirumbolo, A. (2016). The mediating role of organizational identification in the relationship between qualitative job insecurity, OCB and job performance. Journal of Management Development, 35(6), 735–746. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-10-2015-0143
Chen, L.. (2020). Labor order under “digital control”. Sociological Studies, 113-135. 10.19934/j.cnki.shxyj.2020.06.006
Clark, A. E. (1997). Job satisfaction and gender: why are women so happy at work? Labour Economics, 4(4), 341–372. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0927-5371(97)00010-9
Cook, C., Diamond, R., Hall, J. V., List, J. A., & Oyer, P. (2021). The gender earnings gap in the gig economy: Evidence from over a million rideshare drivers. The Review of Economic Studies, 88(5), 2210–2238. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdaa081
Dong, R., Wu, H., Ni, S., & Lu, T. (2021). The nonlinear consequences of working hours for job satisfaction: The moderating role of job autonomy. Current Psychology, 1–22.
Hoang, T. T. A., & Knabe, A. (2021). Time use, unemployment, and well-being: an empirical analysis using British time-use data. Journal of Happiness Studies, 22, 2525–2548.
ILO. (2021). Digital platforms and the world of work in G20 countries: Status and Policy Action (pp. 1–27). Brill Nijhoff.
Knight, J., & Gunatilaka, R. (2010). The rural–urban divide in China: Income but not happiness? The Journal of Development Studies, 46(3), 506–534. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220380903012763
Lee, H. (2021). Working hours and life satisfaction: Finding blind spots from Korean panel data. International Review of Public Administration, 26(1), 92–109.
Lei, Y. W. (2021). Delivering solidarity: Platform architecture and collective contention in China’s platform economy. American Sociological Review, 86(2), 279–309. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122420979980
Locke, E. A. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Ng, T. W., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). The relationships of age with job attitudes: A meta-analysis. Personnel psychology, 63(3), 677–718. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01184.x
Rudolf, R. (2014). Work shorter, be happier? Longitudinal evidence from the Korean five-day working policy. Journal of Happiness Studies, 15, 1139–1163.
Shin, M. G., Kim, Y. J., Kim, T. K., & Kang, D. (2021). Effects of long working hours and night work on subjective well-being depending on work creativity and task variety, and occupation: the role of working-time mismatch, variability, shift work, and autonomy. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(12), 6371.
Sjöberg, O. (2010). Social insurance as a collective resource: unemployment benefits, job insecurity and subjective well-being in a comparative perspective. Social Forces, 88(3), 1281–1304. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.0.0293
Wang, C., & Lin, Q. (2021). How does bad weather affect labor productivity? Evidence from the adaption behavior of couriers. China Economic Quarterly, 21(3), 787–818.
Webster, J. (2016). Microworkers of the gig economy: Separate and precarious. In New labor forum (Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 56-64). Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.1177/10957960166615
Wilczyńska, A., Batorski, D., & Sellens, J. T. (2016). Employment flexibility and job security as determinants of job satisfaction: the case of Polish knowledge workers. Social Indicators Research, 126, 633–656. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-015-0909-6
Zheng, H., Vatsa, P., Ma, W., & Zhou, X. (2023). Working hours and job satisfaction in China: A threshold analysis. China Economic Review, 77(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2022.101902
Zhu, Y. (2013). A review of job satisfaction. Asian Social Science, 9(1), 293–298. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v9n1p293
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
We declare that we no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence the research. There is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of, the manuscript.
Tianyu Jin, Tuo Wang, Shaojie Zhou, Donghao Liu
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Appendix A
Appendix A
The National Survey on New Occupations of Youth, conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, aims to investigate the working and life conditions of employees in new occupations in 2020. The survey defines new occupations as those that are recent or not yet included in the Occupational Classification of the People's Republic of China, with a certain scale of employees, relatively independent and mature professional and skill requirements, and characterized by novel business modes, part-time work, and flexible employment. Seven new occupations are investigated in the survey, including on-demand delivery workers, network anchors, full media operators, online literature writers, e-sports practitioners, emerging Internet technology practitioners, and new professional farmers/agricultural managers. As the first national survey focusing on platform workers in China, this survey provides detailed information on the personal characteristics and working conditions of these workers, including income, job satisfaction, health condition, and future work plans.
The survey sample consists of respondents aged 18 to 45 years old, who were recruited online using the Wen Juan Xing application for data collection. The questionnaire was distributed through quota sampling by province, with the survey amount specified for different occupations in different provinces. Specifically, 400 questionnaires were distributed to on-demand delivery couriers in provincial areas with more developed service economies and large populations, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan, Shandong, Fujian, Guangdong, Sichuan, and Chongqing. In addition, 100 questionnaires were distributed in each of the other provinces. After screening and data cleaning, the survey yielded a total of 11,495 valid questionnaires. Among the valid samples, 53.9% were on-demand delivery couriers, 12.8% were online anchors, 7% were full-media operators, 6.8% were online-literature writers, 4.8% were e-sports practitioners, 4.2% were emerging Internet technology practitioners, and 2.3% were new professional farmers/agricultural managers. Respondents who did not belong to the above seven categories of new occupations were classified as other new occupations, with a total of 8.2% of the valid sample. The distribution of samples from different occupations is shown in Appendix Figure A4.
The distribution of samples in each new occupation
Appendix B
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Jin, T., Wang, T., Zhou, S. et al. Long Working Hours and Job Satisfaction in Platform Employment: An Empirical Study of On-Demand Delivery Couriers in China. Applied Research Quality Life (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10269-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10269-7