Posted on 04/28/2012 8:30:41 AM PDT by reaganaut1
One of the most controversial issues surrounding inequality is work effort. Some on the right argue that top earners are successful in part because they work harder than others. Many on the left argue that the middle class and poor work just as hard – maybe even harder, with multiple jobs — but that the economic deck is stacked against them.
A new study offers evidence that higher-educated (and therefore higher-earning) Americans do indeed spend more time working and less time on leisure than poorer income groups. In fact, while income inequality may be growing, “leisure inequality” – time spent on enjoyment – is growing as a mirror image, with the low earners gaining leisure and the high earners losing.
The paper, by Orazio Attanasio, Erik Hurst and Luigi Pistaferri, finds that both income inequality and consumption inequality (the stuff that people buy) have increased over the past 20 years.
The more surprising discovery, however, is a corresponding leisure gap has opened up between the highly-educated and less-educated. Low-educated men saw their leisure hours grow to 39.1 hours in 2003-2007, from 36.6 hours in 1985. Highly-educated men saw their leisure hours shrink to 33.2 hours from 34.4 hours. (Mr. Hurst says that education levels are a “proxy” for incomes, since they tend to correspond).
A similar pattern emerged for women. Low-educated women saw their leisure time grow to 35.2 hours a week from 35 hours. High-educated women saw their leisure time decrease to 30.3 hours from 32.2 hours. Educated women, in other words, had the largest decline in leisure time of the four groups.
(The study defines leisure as time spend watching TV, socializing, playing games, talking on the phone, reading personal email, enjoying entertainment and hobbies and other activities.)
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
I've gotten in more than a couple arguments about this topic, but I agree with you. I want to be a millionaire (and I think I'd be a really good one, too,) but I've never taken the financial risks, gotten the education, or wanted to work the hours to make it happen.
Some people are just more ambitious than others.
bogus study again stating how much better the "productive" class is then all of us peons....
maybe, just maybe, the guy picking up garbage needs to have more "leisure" time than the rich banker dining on prawns and steak for a lunch time "business" meeting...
physical work is exhausting...physically exhausting...
“physical work is exhausting...physically exhausting...”
You’re talking to someone who worked in a factory all his adult life. That’s why I retired as soon as I could.
I have never had a job that wasn’t physically exhausting or at least demanding.
Prior to factory work, I was in the military for 4 years and not with a “desk job”, prior to that I did farm work from the time I was about 10 years old, mostly in the cotton fields.
I’ll be 67 years old in June and my wife and I are adopting 2 more kids, ages 13 and 12, they have lived with us for the last 4 years, final adoption hearing is May 11 th. We need and love them and they need and love us but sometimes I think I was born tired. God has blessed us with 4 adult children, 14 grand children and 4 great grand children. Our oldest is 44 years old and she, along with our other grown kids are thrilled to be getting a new little brother and sister.
P.S. I’ll be writing a “vanity post”, with pictures when the adoption is final, If it’s OK, I’ll put you on my “to ping list” when I post it, I want everybody to know about our “new children”.
You got that exactly right! The only time I can get away from the office and be unreachable is when I take the family to the cabin in the U.P.
No cellphone signal, no 4G signal, and without the dish there's no TV either. I don't have a hardline for phone up there but I do maintain a minimum bandwidth DSL connection that I do not speak of with my employer. It's well known when I say I'm headed "up north" that I'll be unreachable.
I relish my breaks from technology. It's my 'decompress' time.
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