Sleep and the Allocation of Time
Sleep must be considered subject to choice and affected by the same economic variables that affect other uses of time. Using aggregated data for 12 countries, a cross-section of microeconomic data, and a panel of households, we demonstrate that increases in time spent in the labor market reduce sleep time. Each additional hour of market work reduces sleep by roughly 10 minutes (and waking nonmarket time by 50 minutes). The total time available for work and leisure is thus itself subject to choice. Interestingly too, otherwise identical women sleep significantly less than men (even though the average Woman sleeps slightly more). We develop a theory of the demand for sleep that differs from standard models by its assumption that sleep affects wages through its impact on labor-market productivity. Estimates of a system of demand equations demonstrate that higher wage rates reduce sleep time among men, an effect that is entirely offset by their positive effect on waking nonmarket time. Among Women the wage effect on waking nonmarket time is negative and small, but the effect on sleep is negative and quite large. These results, and the model they are based on, allow a more s subtle interpretation of standard results in the labor supply literature.
|Date of creation:||May 1989|
|Date of revision:|
|Publication status:||published as Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 98, No. 5, Part 1, October 1990,pp. 922-943.|
|Contact details of provider:|| Postal: |
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Heckman, James J & Macurdy, Thomas E, 1980. "A Life Cycle Model of Female Labour Supply," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(1), pages 47-74, January.
- Kooreman, P. & Kapteyn, A.J., 1984.
"A disaggregated analysis of the allocation of time within the household,"
FEW 153, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
- Kooreman, Peter & Kapteyn, Arie, 1987. "A Disaggregated Analysis of the Allocation of Time within the Household," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(2), pages 223-49, April.
- Murphy, Kevin M & Topel, Robert H, 1985.
"Estimation and Inference in Two-Step Econometric Models,"
Journal of Business & Economic Statistics,
American Statistical Association, vol. 3(4), pages 370-79, October.
- Murphy, Kevin M & Topel, Robert H, 2002. "Estimation and Inference in Two-Step Econometric Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 88-97, January.
- Michael Abbott & Orley Ashenfelter, 1974.
"Labor Supply, Commodity Demand, and the Allocation of Time,"
437, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
- Abbott, Michael & Ashenfelter, Orley, 1976. "Labour Supply, Commodity Demand and the Allocation of Time," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 389-411, October.
- Stafford, Frank & Duncan, Greg J., 1979. "The Use of Time and Technology by Households in the United States," Working Paper Series 21, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:2988. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ()
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.