Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades

Mark Aguiar and Erik Hurst

No 12082, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In this paper, we use five decades of time-use surveys to document trends in the allocation of time. We find that a dramatic increase in leisure time lies behind the relatively stable number of market hours worked (per working-age adult) between 1965 and 2003. Specifically, we show that leisure for men increased by 6-8 hours per week (driven by a decline in market work hours) and for women by 4-8 hours per week (driven by a decline in home production work hours). This increase in leisure corresponds to roughly an additional 5 to 10 weeks of vacation per year, assuming a 40-hour work week. Alternatively, the "consumption equivalent" of the increase in leisure is valued at 8 to 9 percent of total 2003 U.S. consumption expenditures. We also find that leisure increased during the last 40 years for a number of sub-samples of the population, with less-educated adults experiencing the largest increases. 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.

JEL-codes: D12 D13 J22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Note: EFG LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (60)

Published as Aguiar, Mark and Erik Hurst. “Measuring Leisure: The Allocation of Time over Five Decades.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 122, 3 (August 2007): 969-1006.

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Journal Article: Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades (2007)
Working Paper: Measuring trends in leisure: the allocation of time over five decades (2006)
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