무엇이 장시간 근로를 유인하는가?: 근로시간 체제의 제도적 정합성 분석

초록

South Korea and Sweden share a statutory workweek of 40 hours, yet Korean workers log 478 more hours annually. The gaps with Finland and Japan—413 and 260 hours, respectively—are no less stark. The law reads the same; the reality diverges dramatically. This paradox betrays a hidden script beneath formal regulation: an underlying logic shaped by how institutional elements are configured and interact. To decode this script, the study integrates two theoretical traditions—institutional complementarity from Comparative Political Economy (Varieties of Capitalism) and bundle-fit theory from Strategic Human Resource Management—into a unified framework. Both rest on the conviction that outcomes are driven not by isolated institutions but by the coherence of their configurations. The study maps the working-time regulatory architectures of thirteen countries, including Germany, France, the United States, Japan, and South Korea, along five dimensions: the unit of time accounting, the reference period for hour-averaging, the integration of flexibility mechanisms, the role of collective bargaining, and the enforcement triad of recording, oversight, and sanctions. Effects of institutional coherence on annual working hours and time sovereignty are estimated through cross-sectional regression and panel fixed-effects models. Four findings emerge. First, a one-standard-deviation increase in the architecture index corresponds to roughly 128 fewer annual hours (β = −127.67, p < 0.05), with all four coherence variables significant at the 1 percent level in the time-sovereignty-deficit analysis (β = −0.661 to −0.758). Second, neither statutory hours nor weekly ceilings exert a discernible effect on time sovereignty. Third, the sovereignty-enhancing power of complementarity intensifies where long hours are entrenched (interaction term β = −0.188, p < 0.05; Adj. R² = 0.930)—suggesting that coherence proves most potent precisely where it is needed most. Fourth, panel fixed-effects estimates confirm that when complementarity deepens within a country over time, working hours contract significantly (β = −157.31, p < 0.05). These results recast long working hours not as cultural inevitability but as an artifact of institutional design. South Korea registers the weakest complementarity among all countries examined—the product of a rigid weekly accounting unit that resets every seven days and fails to govern cumulative exposure, a patchwork of flexibility schemes burdened by labyrinthine procedures, frail time-recording and inspection infrastructure, and the absence of collective governance for calibrating workplace-level rules. By demonstrating that actual working time is shaped not by the statutory ceiling but by the interplay of regulatory elements beneath it, this study calls for a reorientation of policy—from the familiar pursuit of lowering statutory limits toward the more consequential question of how to architect a coherent package that stratifies time accounting, streamlines flexibility arrangements, fortifies oversight, and empowers collective governance.

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