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The average American may feel he spends too much time working, but Erik Hurst, associate professor of economics and the John Huizinga Faculty Fellow, wants him to know he has more free time than before. Disbelievers (if they can find the time) need only look at the February 2 issue of The Economist. The magazine featured research by Hurst and Mark Aguiar of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on “ Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time over Five Decades.”
The researchers found workers enjoying an extra 4-8 hours per week of leisure. That translates to about 5-10 weeks of extra “time” based on a 40 hour work week.
As described in the study, the official count of hours worked by Americans shows little change over the last 40 years. So what accounts for the perception (and exhaustion) workers feel?
One reason is that the number of hours worked by western European countries has shrunk. (France has a legally-mandated 35 hour work week.)
Another factor is a more encompassing definition of the term “work.” Previously, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau limited “work” to mean time spent in offices and factories. They did not include shopping, cleaning, cooking and other tasks.
Most Americans would definitely agree that adding those tasks certainly makes them feel time-starved. However, Hurst and Aguiar’s findings indicate we actually spend less time doing the cooking, cleaning, shopping etc. than we did 40 years ago due to technological and economic advances (from dishwashers to Merry Maids).
It’s the data surrounding time spent working that is one of the revolutionary aspects of the study. The researchers based their findings on time-use diaries collected once a decade since 1965 by social scientists. The diaries list detailed information on what the subjects did within each 24-hour period.
So what is the economic value of this extra leisure time? Steven Davis, William H. Abbott Professor of International Business and Economics, helped to compute the dollar figure. Using average hourly wages after tax, the value of all that “free” time is $3,300 per worker.
Economics is another reason Americans feel overworked. With more income, workers feel their time is worth more. It can be hard to stop and smell the roses if you feel a meter is ticking. Also more money seems to make people feel they have to squeeze more (work and play) into a day.
Finally, technology adds to that pressured feeling. Email and cell phones make it easy for work to intrude on a worker’s life. It also has created competition (via outsourcing) that makes Americans feel less secure about their jobs.
Hurst's research was the subject of articles in Turkey and Canada. Apparently the stereotype of the frazzled American worker also holds true for our neighbors to the north according to the Montreal Gazette. The take in the Turkish Daily News concerned how the research helps debunk the perception that Americans outwork their European counterparts.
In other media coverage, the Washington Post ran a lengthy piece on the subject of "Leisure Overload?". Hursts' research provided a central role in a survey of views on work and leisure from the Victorians to the present. The New York Times focused on how leisure time has changed differently for men and women.
Read the article and learn more about the economic study of leisure.