What's to know about time use?

Abstract

Stimulated by the availability of large sets of microeconomic data, research on the economics of time use has been a growth industry in the past 20 years. That growth has included studies that have focused on the effect of people's value of time; on the mix of nonmarket activities that they undertake; on the interactions of spouses' choices of time use; on the valuation of nonmarket time, and on the timing of nonmarket and market activities. By laying out these research questions and indicating their importance, this essay provides a framework for a series of meta-analyses.