IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/62162.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

No Rest for the Weary: Commuting, Hours Worked, and Sleep

Author

Listed:
  • Bishop, James

Abstract

This paper is the first to combine data from large nationwide surveys to investigate how commuting and work hours affect sleep. I estimate that 11-21\% of the marginal unit of time spent working and 22-30\% of the marginal unit of time spent commuting replace sleep. Controlling for these effects, commuting before 5 a.m. and after 9 a.m. each increase the likelihood of short sleep. I also find that time spent commuting and working and the prevalence of these strange commute times each contribute to unintentionally falling asleep at some time during the day, while early commuting in particular increases the likelihood of falling asleep while driving. Little of these effects are explained by reduced time spent sleeping, indicating that there are multiple biological channels through which commuting duration and timing impact road safety. None of these effects appear for non-workers as opposed to the employed, supporting the validity of the results. Overall, most of the effects are stronger for women than for men, though the prevalence of early commutes is particularly associated with less sleep among men.

Suggested Citation

  • Bishop, James, 2015. "No Rest for the Weary: Commuting, Hours Worked, and Sleep," MPRA Paper 62162, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:62162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/62162/1/MPRA_paper_62162.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David L. Dickinson & John C. Whitehead, 2015. "Dubious And Dubiouser: Contingent Valuation And The Time Of Day," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(2), pages 1396-1400, April.
    2. Ross, Stephen L. & Zenou, Yves, 2008. "Are shirking and leisure substitutable? An empirical test of efficiency wages based on urban economic theory," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 498-517, September.
    3. Roberts, Jennifer & Hodgson, Robert & Dolan, Paul, 2011. "“It's driving her mad”: Gender differences in the effects of commuting on psychological health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1064-1076.
    4. David Levinson & Ajay Kumar, 1994. "The Rational Locator: Why Travel Times Have Remained Stable," Working Papers 199402, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    5. White, Michelle J, 1986. "Sex Differences in Urban Commuting Patterns," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 368-372, May.
    6. Kristen Monaco & Lindy Olsson & Justin Hentges, 2005. "Hours Of Sleep And Fatigue In Motor Carriage," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(4), pages 615-624, October.
    7. Szalontai, Gabor, 2006. "The demand for sleep: A South African study," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(5), pages 854-874, September.
    8. Dickinson, David L. & McElroy, Todd, 2010. "Rationality around the clock: Sleep and time-of-day effects on guessing game responses," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 245-248, August.
    9. Antillón, Marina & Lauderdale, Diane S. & Mullahy, John, 2014. "Sleep behavior and unemployment conditions," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 14(C), pages 22-32.
    10. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst, 2007. "Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of Time Over Five Decades," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 969-1006.
    11. Dickerson, Andy & Hole, Arne Risa & Munford, Luke A., 2014. "The relationship between well-being and commuting revisited: Does the choice of methodology matter?," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 321-329.
    12. Biddle, Jeff E & Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1990. "Sleep and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 922-943, October.
    13. Stuart S. Rosenthal & William C. Strange, 2008. "Agglomeration and Hours Worked," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(1), pages 105-118, February.
    14. Buxton, Orfeu M. & Marcelli, Enrico, 2010. "Short and long sleep are positively associated with obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease among adults in the United States," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(5), pages 1027-1036, September.
    15. Pierre Brochu & Catherine Armstrong & Louis-Philippe Morin, 2012. "The ‘trendiness’ of sleep: an empirical investigation into the cyclical nature of sleep time," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 891-913, October.
    16. van Ommeren, Jos N. & Gutiérrez-i-Puigarnau, Eva, 2011. "Are workers with a long commute less productive? An empirical analysis of absenteeism," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 1-8, January.
    17. Mark Aguiar & Erik Hurst & Loukas Karabarbounis, 2013. "Time Use during the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(5), pages 1664-1696, August.
    18. Van Ommeren, Jos & Rietveld, Piet, 2005. "The commuting time paradox," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 437-454, November.
    19. Black, Dan A. & Kolesnikova, Natalia & Taylor, Lowell J., 2014. "Why do so few women work in New York (and so many in Minneapolis)? Labor supply of married women across US cities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 59-71.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christian Pfeifer, 2018. "An Empirical Note On Commuting Distance And Sleep During Workweek And Weekend," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 97-102, January.
    2. Christian Pfeifer, 2015. "UnfairWage Perceptions and Sleep: Evidence from German Survey Data," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 135(4), pages 413-428.
    3. Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2022. "Trends in commuting time of European workers: A cross-country analysis," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 327-342.
    4. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2020. "Elderly's Mobility to and from Work in the US: Metropolitan Status and Population Size," IZA Discussion Papers 13949, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2021. "Two-way commuting: Asymmetries from time use surveys," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    6. Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Velilla, Jorge & Ortega, Raquel, 2022. "Revisiting excess commuting and self-employment: The case of Latin America," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1179, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    7. Costa-Font, Joan & Fleche, Sarah & Pagan, Ricardo, 2024. "The labour market returns to sleep," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    8. Gibson, Matthew & Shrader, Jeffrey, 2014. "Time Use and Productivity: The Wage Returns to Sleep," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt8zp518hc, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    9. Giménez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2020. "Commuting and self-employment in Western Europe," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    10. Belloc, Ignacio, 2021. "El tiempo de desplazamiento al lugar de trabajo en el Reino Unido: Diferencias entre asalariados y autoempleados [Commuting time in the United Kingdom: Differences between wage-earners and self-emp," MPRA Paper 108260, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Joan Costa-Font & Sarah Flèche, 2018. "Child Sleep and Maternal Labour Market Outcomes [Discussion Paper Series]," Working Papers halshs-03204629, HAL.
    12. Sedigh, Golnaz & Devlin, Rose Anne & Grenier, Gilles & Deri Armstrong, Catherine, 2017. "Revisiting the relationship between wages and sleep duration: The role of insomnia," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 125-139.
    13. Shihe Fu & V Brian Viard, 2019. "Commute costs and labor supply: evidence from a satellite campus," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 723-752.
    14. Costa-Font, Joan & Flèche, Sarah, 2020. "Child sleep and mother labour market outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    15. Kajitani, Shinya, 2021. "The return of sleep," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    16. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2023. "Pro-environment Attitudes and Worker Commuting Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 16279, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto & Velilla, Jorge, 2018. "Commuting Time and Sick-Day Absence of US Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 11700, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Joan Costa-Font & Sarah Flèche, 2018. "Child Sleep and Maternal Labour Market Outcomes [Discussion Paper Series]," Working Papers halshs-03204629, HAL.
    19. Costa-Font, Joan & Flèche, Sarah, 2017. "Parental sleep and employment: evidence from a British cohort study," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69530, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. José M. Casado-Díaz & Raquel Simón-Albert & Hipólito Simón, 2023. "Gender Differences in Commuting: New Evidence from Spain," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(3), pages 907-941, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Commuting; Sleep; Time Allocation; Gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • R41 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion; Travel Time; Safety and Accidents; Transportation Noise

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:62162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.