Time Use, Unemployment, and Well-Being: An Empirical Analysis Using British Time-Use Data

Thi Truong An Hoang () and Andreas Knabe
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Thi Truong An Hoang: Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2021, vol. 22, issue 6, No 7, 2525-2548

Abstract: 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 do not find clear indications that employed and unemployed persons experience different average levels of emotional well-being when they engage in the same kinds of activities. For the employed, working belongs to one of the least enjoyable activities of their day. They also spend a large share of their time at work and on work-related activities. The unemployed, instead, spend more time on leisure and more enjoyable activities. When looking at duration-weighted average affective well-being over the entire waking time of the day, the unemployed experience, on average, more enjoyment than the employed. For the employed, the more hours they have to work on a specific day, the lower the average enjoyment they experience on that day. Differentiating the analyses by weekdays and weekends supports the finding that being able to freely allocate one’s non-work time is associated with higher levels of affective well-being. In line with previous studies on cognitive well-being, we find that the unemployed report substantially lower levels of life satisfaction 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: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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Working Paper: Time use, unemployment, and well-being: an empirical analysis using British time-use data (2019)
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DOI: 10.1007/s10902-020-00320-x

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