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Reports

Analyzing the Experiences of Seoul Workers’ of the 52 Weekly Working Hours Cap on Health and Labor
  • 조회수31
  • 등록일2026.06.25
  • Topic Economy/ Administrative·Financial Affairs
  • AuthorInuk Hwang, Min young Hwang, Heonjae Song, Ji Eun Lee

Our study investiagted the experiences of Seoul workers’ of the 52 weekly working hours cap, introduced in July 2018, on their health and labor indicators. Our study is structured as follows. First, we implemented a causal analysis of the effect of the reform on individual expenditures related to health and leisure by using difference-in-differences model and NaSTaB data between 2017 and 2024. Second, given the heterogeneity among the labor force participants in Seoul and difficulties in empricial analysis involving labor and health, we conducted an online survey for Seoul paid workers (n=400) on their subjective experiences of the reform on health care utilization, leisure, physical activities, and life satisfaction. Combinedly, our results suggested that the effect of 52-weekly working hours cap reform on individual labor indicators (weekly working hours and annual income) is contested and not robust but may have been positive among some workers, indicator significant heterogeneity among the Seoul labor market. Specifically, our survey results suggested that workers with difference number of jobs experienced the reform quite differently in terms of labor hours. It also suggested that following the reform, non-negligible proportion of the workers experienced improvements in incidences of health care unmet needs, leisure time, frequencies of physical activities, and life satisfaction indicators. We believe our results showed that setting the maximum working hour cap alone is not sufficient to achieve the true objective of the reform, which is to improve individual health and well-being, and therefore policy levers created from health perspective is strongly needed to be rooted in the labor policies of the national and Seoul government.