Time use, unemployment, and well-being: an empirical analysis using British time-use data

Thi Truong An Hoang and Andreas Knabe

No 7581, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We use nationally representative data from the UK Time-Use Survey 2014/2015 to investigate how a person’s employment status is related to time use and cognitive and affective dimensions of subjective well-being. We find that unemployed persons report substantially lower levels of life satisfaction than employed persons. When looking at specific types of activities, the unemployed enjoy most of the activities they engage in less than the employed. However, the employed consider working to be one of the least enjoyable activities. They also spend a large share of their time at work and with work-related activities, while the unemployed spend more time on leisure and more enjoyable activities instead. When looking at duration-weighted average affective well-being over the entire waking time of the day, our results suggest that the benefit of having to spend less time at work outweighs the negative emotional effect of unemployment during leisure episodes, such that the unemployed experience, on average, more enjoyment during the day than the employed.

Keywords: unemployment; happiness; affective well-being; time use; Day Reconstruction Method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I31 J22 J60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-hap and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Time Use, Unemployment, and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis Using British Time-Use Data (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7581

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