Timing, togetherness and time windfalls

Abstract

With appropriate data the analysis of time use, labor supply and leisure can move beyond the standard questions of wage and income elasticities of hours supplied. I present four examples: 1) American data from 1973 through 1997 show that the amount of evening and night work in the U.S. has decreased. 2) The same data demonstrate that workers whose relative earnings increase experience a relative diminution of the burden of work at unpleasant times. 3) U.S. data for the 1970s and 1990s demonstrate that spouses’ work schedules are more synchronized than would occur randomly; synchrony among working spouses diminished after the 1970s; and the full-income elasticity of demand for it was higher among wives than among husbands in the 1970s but equal in the 1990s. 4) Dutch time-budget data for 1990 show that the overwhelming majority of the windfall hour that occurred when standard time resumed was used for extra sleep.