An easier government? The impact of digital government platform on government employee overtime

BackgroundOvertime serves as an indicator of bureaucrats' efficiency. If excessive, it may undermine the country's long-term capacity to fulfill its responsibilities. The global ascent of digital government transformation presents new opportunities to alleviate the burden on government employees.ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate the impact of digital government on the work burden of government employees.MethodsUtilizing daily satellite nighttime light data and a long-term nationwide survey dataset, we constructed a new government overtime indicator for China. In terms of analytical methods, this study employs the Difference-in-Differences (DID) model and the Double Machine Learning (DML) model to identify causal effects.ResultsThe study found that digital government significantly reduced overtime, with each government employee working 2.5 fewer overtime hours per week. Further analysis revealed a U-shaped relationship between the level of digital government intelligence and the overtime. Digital government has been demonstrated to be more clearly correlated with reduced overtime in areas with a strong overtime culture, among men, in the 45-65 age group, among the group with no higher education, and among the group with high promotion expectations and high income satisfaction. The monetary valuation analysis indicates that digital government has resulted in a total savings of USD 14.76 billion in labor costs for 2022.ConclusionsDigital government platforms are crucial for reducing government employees' overtime. These findings provide decision-making references for saving labor costs and enhancing government efficiency. In addition, the study provides empirical evidence on how to alleviate the work burden of government employees and prevent excessive overtime from eroding the long-term effectiveness of the public sector in the context of global digital government transformation.