Measuring trends in leisure: The allocation of time over five decades

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Aguiar, Mark; Hurst, Erik
• 署名单位: University of Rochester; University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/qjec.122.3.969
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 969-1006
• 关键词: household production; CHILDREN; GROWTH; wage

摘要

In this paper, we use five decades of time-use surveys to document trends in the allocation of time within the United States. We find that a dramatic increase in leisure time lies behind the relatively stable number of market hours worked between 1965 and 2003. Specifically, using a variety of definitions for leisure, we show that leisure for men increased by roughly six to nine hours per week (driven by a decline in market work hours) and for women by roughly four to eight hours per week (driven by a decline in home production work hours). Lastly, we document a growing inequality in leisure that is the mirror image of the growing inequality of wages and expenditures, making welfare calculation based solely on the latter series incomplete.