Working Paper: NBER ID: w9440
Authors: Daniel S. Hamermesh
Abstract: Routine - maintaining the same schedule from day to day - saves time. It is also boring and inherently undesirable. As such, the amount of routine a person engages in is partly an economic outcome, with variations in routine generated by variations in the price of time, household income and the ability to generate variety. Using time-budget data from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, I show that men engage in more routine behavior than women, but only because they spend more time in (routine) market work. Other things equal, more educated people engage in less routine behavior, while higher household incomes enable people to purchase more temporal variety. Spouses' temporal routines are highly complementary. The positive income effects and impacts of schooling indicate yet another avenue by which standard measures of inequality understate total economic inequality.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: J22; J12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| higher household income (D19) | less routine behavior (C92) |
| gender (J16) | level of routine behavior (L20) |
| education levels (I24) | extent of routine activities (R11) |
| higher household income (D19) | greater variety of activities (R11) |