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 and
dynamic multinomial logit models are estimated, with the dependent variable distinguishing
long hours workers from other workers, and within the former, between “volunteers”, who
prefer long hours, and “conscripts”, who do not. The results suggest that: (i) high levels of
debt are mainly associated with conscript status; (ii) ideal worker types can be found among
both volunteers and conscripts, but are much more likely to be conscripts; and (iii) women
are relatively rare among long hours workers, and especially long hours volunteers,
suggesting long hours jobs may be discriminatory. The research highlights the importance of
distinguishing conscripts and volunteers to understand the prevalence and dynamics of long
work hours.