Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has bemoaned the extent of underemployment in Australia and the prevalence of "second jobs" during the first leaders' debate of the 2019 election.

Australians work some of the longest hours in the developed world – substantially longer than their counterparts in Denmark, The Netherlands and Norway. For many Australians though, work stress is related not to the number of hours worked, but a mismatch between the workers’ desired and actual hours of work, and the inflexibility of these...

This paper discusses how for some employees The National Employment Scheme will be the sole safety net and support, in terms of negotiating working hours and conditions with their employer.

Panel data from Australia are used to study the prevalence of work hours mismatch among long hours workers and, more importantly, how that mismatch persists and changes over time, and what factors are associated with these changes. Particular attention is paid to the roles played by household debt, ideal worker characteristics and gender. Both static...

Robert Drago, David Black and Mark Wooden tested alternative hypotheses for the causes of long working hours, using data for an Australian sample of full-time employed workers. The results suggest that long hours (50 or more hours in a usual week) are often persistent, and provide strongest support for the consumerism hypothesis, with some support...