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A Gift of Time

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  • Daiji Kawaguchi
  • Jungmin Lee
  • Daniel S. Hamermesh

Abstract

How would people spend time if confronted by permanent declines in market work? We identify preferences off exogenous cuts in legislated standard hours that raised employers' overtime costs in Japan around 1990 and Korea in the early 2000s. We estimate the probability that an individual was affected by the reform and relate it to changes in time use based on time diaries. Reduced-form estimates show that the direct effect on a newly-constrained worker was a substantial reduction in market time, with the freed-up time in Japan reallocated to leisure, but in Korea also showing some impact on household production. Simulations using GMM estimates of a Stone-Geary utility function defined over time use suggest no effect on household production in either country. Estimation of a household model shows only slight evidence that spouses shared the time gift, nor that one spouse's allocation of non-market time changed when the other spouse's market work was permanently and exogenously reduced.

Suggested Citation

  • Daiji Kawaguchi & Jungmin Lee & Daniel S. Hamermesh, 2012. "A Gift of Time," NBER Working Papers 18643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18643
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    2. Kawaguchi, Daiji & Lee, Jungmin & Hamermesh, Daniel S., 2013. "A gift of time," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 205-216.
    3. Mark A. Aguiar & Erik Hurst & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2011. "Time Use During Recessions," NBER Working Papers 17259, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. HARA Hiromi & Núria RODRà GUEZ-PLANAS, 2021. "Long-Term Consequences of Teaching Gender Roles: Evidence from Desegregating Industrial Arts and Home Economics in Japan," Discussion papers 21072, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    5. Jeremy Lise & Nao Sudo & Michio Suzuki & Ken Yamada & Tomoaki Yamada, 2014. "Wage, Income and Consumption Inequality in Japan, 1981-2008: from Boom to Lost Decades," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(4), pages 582-612, October.
    6. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Kawaguchi, Daiji & Lee, Jungmin, 2017. "Does labor legislation benefit workers? Well-being after an hours reduction," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    7. Jungmin Lee, 2017. "The labor market in South Korea, 2000–2016," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 405-405, December.
    8. Cristina Borra & Francisco Gómez-García, 2016. "Wellbeing at Work and the Great Recession: The Effect of Others’ Unemployment," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 1939-1962, October.
    9. Klein, Tobias & Bronnenberg, Bart & Xu, Yan, 2018. "Consumer Time Budgets and Grocery Shopping Behavior," CEPR Discussion Papers 13302, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Kawaguchi, Daiji, 2016. "Fewer school days, more inequality," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 35-52.
    11. Stéphane Carcillo & Alexander Hijzen & Stefan Thewissen, 2024. "The limitations of overtime limits to reduce long working hours: Evidence from the 2018 to 2021 working time reform in Korea," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 62(1), pages 98-126, March.
    12. Elena Stancanelli & Arthur Van Soest, 2016. "Partners’ leisure time truly together upon retirement," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, December.
    13. Erin Hye-Won Kim & Changjun Lee & Young Kyung Do, 2019. "The Effect of Adult Children’s Working Hours on Visits to Elderly Parents: A Natural Experiment in Korea," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(1), pages 53-72, February.
    14. Lee, Jungmin & Lee, Yong-Kwan, 2016. "Can working hour reduction save workers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 25-36.
    15. Kiho Muroga, 2020. "Work or housework? Mincer’s hypothesis and the labor supply elasticity of married women in Japan," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 71(2), pages 303-347, April.
    16. Kawaguchi, Daiji & Naito, Hisahiro & Yokoyama, Izumi, 2017. "Assessing the effects of reducing standard hours: Regression discontinuity evidence from Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 59-76.
    17. Hara, Hiromi & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2021. "Long-Term Consequences of Teaching Gender Roles: Evidence from Desegregating Industrial Arts and Home Economics in Japan," IZA Discussion Papers 14611, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Tsukada, Rachel & Dupuy, Arnaud, 2016. "The impact of household labor-saving technologies along the family life cycle," MERIT Working Papers 2016-047, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    19. Sofía Garrido & Emilio Gutiérrez, 2019. "Time goes by so slowly (for those who wait): a field experiment in health care," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-17, December.
    20. Xu, Yan, 2017. "Essays on preference formation and home production," Other publications TiSEM b028fd7e-53ba-4ff6-97eb-4, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    21. Begoña Álvarez & Daniel Miles-Touya, 2019. "Gender imbalance in housework allocation: a question of time?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1257-1287, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D13 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Production and Intrahouse Allocation
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

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