Labour supply
total hours that workers wish to work at a given real wage rate
In mainstream economic theories, the labour supply is the total hours (adjusted for intensity of effort) that workers wish to work at a given real wage rate. It is frequently represented graphically by a labour supply curve, which shows hypothetical wage rates plotted vertically and the amount of labour that an individual or group of individuals is willing to supply at that wage rate plotted horizontally. There are three distinct aspects to labor supply or expected hours of work: the fraction of the population who are employed, the average number of hours worked by those that are employed, and the average number of hours worked in the population as a whole.
Neoclassical view
Labour supply curves derive from the 'labour-leisure' trade-off. More hours worked earn higher incomes, but necessitate a cut in the amount of leisure that workers enjoy. Consequently, there are two effects on the amount of labour supplied due to a change in the real wage rate. As, for example, the real wage rate rises, the opportunity cost of leisure increases. This tends to make workers supply more labour (the "substitution effect"). However, also as the real wage rate rises, workers earn a higher income for a given number of hours. If leisure is a normal good—the demand for it increases as income increases—this increase in income tends to make workers supply less labour so they can "spend" the higher income on leisure (the "income effect").
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Labour supply” is total hours that workers wish to work at a given real wage rate. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Labour, supply and total, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2717283. The Library of Congress control number is sh85073724. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Labour supply” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.