Social commentators have pointed to the "problems" of citizens of industrialized countries, especially working women, who face "time stress" — an absence of sufficient time to accomplish all their tasks. An economic theory views time stress as an increasing function of the shadow price of time and suggests it will be more prevalent in households with higher incomes and whose members work longer in the market or on "required" homework. Evidence from microeconomic data sets for Australia, Germany, Korea and the United States corroborates this view. Adults in higher-income households perceive more time stress. In the United States a move from the 25th to the 75th percentile of the income distribution raises time stress by half as much as an interquartile change in weekly market work. The relative effects of increased income compared to increased market work are larger in Germany, smaller in Australia, and roughly the same in Korea. Time stress is part "time crunch," but much is also part "yuppie kvetch." |
