Work time and market integration in the original affluent society

Rahul Bhui (), Maciej Chudek and Joseph Henrich
Additional contact information
Rahul Bhui: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; Department of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
Maciej Chudek: Private address, Tulita, NT X0E 0K0, Canada

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019, vol. 116, issue 44, 22100-22105

Abstract: Does integration into commercial markets lead people to work longer hours? Does this mean that people in more subsistence-oriented societies work less compared to those in more market-integrated societies? Despite their venerable status in both anthropology and economic history, these questions have been difficult to address due to a dearth of appropriate data. Here, we tackle the issue by combining high-quality time allocation datasets from 8 small-scale populations around the world (45,019 observations of 863 adults) with similar aggregate data from 14 industrialized (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. Both within and across societies, we find evidence of a positive correlation between work time and market engagement for men, although not for women. Shifting to fully commercial labor is associated with an increase in men’s work from around 45 h per week to 55 h, on average; women’s work remains at nearly 55 h per week across the spectrum. These results inform us about the socioeconomic determinants of time allocation across a wider range of human societies.

Keywords: time allocation; labor; market integration; subsistence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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