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Leisure beliefs and the subjective well-being ofnations

Lucía Macchia & Ashley V. Whillans

To cite this article: Lucía Macchia & Ashley V. Whillans (2019): Leisure beliefs and the subjectivewell-being of nations, The Journal of Positive Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2019.1689413

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1689413

Published online: 14 Nov 2019.

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Leisure beliefs and the subjective well-being of nationsLucía Macchia a* and Ashley V. Whillansb*

aDepartment of Psychology, City, University of London, London, UK; bNegotiations, Organizations & Markets Unit, Harvard Business School,Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

ABSTRACTThe policies of most governments focus on improving material prosperity. Yet, wealth only weaklypredicts well-being. It is therefore important to understand whether factors other than moneyshape the happiness of nations. Here, we construct a data set of 79 countries (N = 220,000) andexplore whether differences in the prioritization of time (leisure) vs. money (work) explain cross-country differences in happiness. Consistent with our predictions, countries whose citizens valueleisure more than work report higher subjective well-being at the country and individual level.These effects hold in high and low GDP countries. Critically, we find evidence for a novel mechan-ism: people who value leisure over work are less negatively impacted by financial instability.Moving beyond individual welfare, the value that nations place on leisure vs. work fundamentallyshapes happiness.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 3 July 2019Accepted 31 October 2019

KEYWORDSLeisure; work; happiness;subjective well-being; publicpolicy

Introduction

Can wealth promote happiness, and if so, how? Moneyprovides access to experiences that are linked to greaterhappiness, including vacations (Van Boven & Gilovich,2003), education (Blanchflower & Oswald, 2004), andhealthcare (Shields & Price, 2005). Yet, other factorssuch as time affluence also uniquely contribute to well-being (Mogilner, Whillans, & Norton, 2018). In nationallyrepresentative samples of employed Americans, peoplewho prioritize time over money report greater life satis-faction, controlling for factors such as income, age, andmarital status (Whillans, Weidman, & Dunn, 2016).People’s leisure beliefs are especially important for well-being: Individuals who consider leisure wasteful are lesshappy than those who do not (Tonietto, Malkoc, Reczek,& Norton, 2019). Moving beyond the individual, wesought to explore whether cross-country differences inthe proclivity to prioritize time (leisure) over money(work) shape wellbeing at the level of nations.

This research question follows from an emerging lit-erature documenting the happiness benefits of prioritiz-ing time over money (Hershfield, Mogilner, & Barnea,2016; Whillans & Dunn, 2018; Whillans et al., 2016). Inone set of studies, thousands of respondents completeda single-item measure assessing whether they valuedtime or money (Whillans et al., 2016). People answeredwhether they were willing to give up money to havemore time (time-focused) or whether they were willing

to give up time to have more money (money-focused).Responses to this measure predicted people’s hypothe-tical choices when faced with a variety of scenarios, suchas choosing a cheaper apartment that was further awayfrom work vs. a closer, more expensive apartment.Responses to this measure also predicted people’s like-lihood of selecting a housecleaning voucher versusa cash prize in a lottery and the number of hours thatpeople reported working each week (Whillans et al.,2016). Most relevant for the current research, peoplewho were time-focused were happier.

In a nationally representative sample of 1,265 workingadults living in the United States, people who valued timeover money reported higher life satisfaction and thisresult held controlling for variables that could otherwiseexplain these results, such as household income, educa-tion, age, marital status, number of children living athome, and number of work hours per week. Meta-analyzing the results of six studies conducted with stu-dents and working adults living in the US and Canada(N = 4,328; Whillans et al., 2016), there was a small, reliableeffect whereby people who valued time more thanmoney reported higher subjective well-being. This asso-ciation held for all three facets of subjective well-being.

Of course, cross-sectional data are inherently limited,precluding inferences about whether the tendency toprioritize time causes greater happiness. It is possiblethat happier people are more likely to choose to prioritizetime. To begin to disentangle these possibilities,

CONTACT Ashley V. Whillans awhillans@hbs.edu*shared first authorship

THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGYhttps://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1689413

© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

researchers have studied individuals on the brink ofa critical life transition – graduating from university –tracking their priorities, feelings, and choices over time.In this research, after controlling for initial levels of happi-ness, individuals who prioritized time over money duringtheir final year of college reported greater happiness12–24 months after graduating (Whillans, Macchia, &Dunn, 2019). This longitudinal study provides the stron-gest evidence to date that the broad proclivity to prior-itize time over money predicts subsequent well-being.

Additional data supports the idea that prioritizing timecausally increases happiness (Whillans, Dunn, Smeets,Bekkers, & Norton, 2017). In one experiment, participantswere provided with $40 to spend on each of two week-ends. On one weekend, participants were assigned tospend this money on a time-saving purchase, in ‘anyway that would save time.’ On another weekend, thesame individuals were asked to spend this $40 paymenton a material purchase for themselves. People reportedhigher positive affect, and lower negative affect onthe day that they made a time-saving purchase as com-pared to the day that they made a material purchase(Whillans et al., 2017). Together, these data suggest thatthe broad orientations people have toward time andmoney can fundamentally shape happiness.

While informative, prior research has not yet exploredthe link between valuing time over money and well-being across countries. Indeed, prior research hasfocused exclusively on people who live in countriesthat are relatively affluent. To ensure the generalizabilityof these results (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010),research is needed that includes countries with varyinglevels of income. People pay most attention to scarceresources and derive emotional benefits from overcom-ing resource scarcity (e.g., Shah, Shafir, & Mullainathan,2015). Thus, individuals living in wealthier nations whoare more time constrained (Hamermesh & Lee, 2007)might benefit most from valuing time over money. Incontrast, individuals living in less wealthy nations whoare more financially constrained might benefit mostfrom valuing money (Lee, Hall, & Wood, 2018 fora related argument).

In this paper, we explore the role of cross-countrydifferences in the prioritization of time (leisure) vs.money (work) and well-being in a sample of 79 coun-tries. Specifically, we explore how the tendency to prior-itize leisure is associated with well-being within both lowand high GDP countries. Following research showingthat prioritizing time protects individuals against stress(Whillans et al., 2017), we also examine whether cross-country differences in prioritizing leisure protects citi-zens from the negative impact of financial uncertainty –

a major cause of stress for working adults worldwide(Hobfoll, 1989).

Until recently, Gross Domestic Product (GDP: the mone-tary value of the goods and services produced in a country)was considered the main indicator of societal well-being,due to a general belief among policy makers that wealthresults in happiness (Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2009).However, GDP fails to capture factors that impact citizens’well-being, such as general optimism, income inequality,and air pollution (Graham, 2017; Stiglitz et al., 2009;Weinstein & Stone, 2018). Thus, this examination followsfroma call for researchers to examine non-monetary factorsthat may promote nation-level happiness.

Methods

To examine our hypotheses, we employed data from theWorld Values Survey (WVS), which is a cross-sectional dataset that includes data from nearly 100 countries (see sup-plementary material for more detail about the data set).The WVS uses stratified random sampling to obtain nation-ally representative samples: Across countries, individualsare randomly selected from census units, election sections,electoral registers, polling places, central population regis-ters or are drawn from national registers (Inglehart,Basáñez, Jaime, Halman, & Luijkx, 2004). In addition,quota sampling is assigned on the basis of age, gender,religion and occupation to ensure that included countriesare nationally representative on these factors. Data arecollected every four years (starting from 1984) resulting ina final data set that contains over six waves of data. All WVSrespondents complete a 30 or 60 minute questionnairewith a variety of psychosocial measures including happi-ness, self-reported health, financial and life satisfaction,religion and gender norms. Importantly, the WVS hasa variable that is critical to our research question: the extentto which individuals value leisure more than work.

Valuing leisure over work. We created our mainindependent variable using two measures requiringrespondents to report the importance of leisure andwork in their personal lives. Specifically, respondentsanswered ‘For each of the following aspects (leisuretime, work), indicate how important it is in your life’ ona scale from 1 (very important) to 4 (not at all important).First, we reverse coded these measures such that a highernumber represented greater importance. Next, consistentwith prior research (Whillans et al., 2016), we subtractedthe importance of work question from the importance ofleisure question to create a measure that representedrespondents’ tendency to value leisure more than work,such that a higher number denoted the extent respon-dents valued leisure more than work.

2 L. MACCHIA AND A. V. WHILLANS

Subjective well-being. Our key dependent variable ofinterest was subjective well-being (SWB), which is typicallydefined as a combination of high life satisfaction, highpositive affect, and low negative affect (Andrews &Withne, 1976). To examine life satisfaction, respondentsanswered a well-validated question ‘All things considered,how satisfied are youwith your life as a whole these days?’on a scale from1 (Dissatisfied) to 10 (Satisfied). We selectedthis measure because it has high validity and reliability(Diener, Inglehart, & Tay, 2013) and because it has beenused by other researchers to explore subjective well-being at the country and individual level (Easterlin, 2009;Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis, 1998). We also examinedpositive affect: ‘Taking all things together, would you sayyou are: Very happy (1), Rather happy (2), Not very happy(3), Not at all happy (4).’ We reverse coded this measuresuch that a higher number represented higher happiness.Moreover, we created a composite of SWB by standardiz-ing and adding the life satisfaction and happiness mea-sures together (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). For thesake of brevity, and due to the higher psychometric prop-erties of the life satisfaction measure, we focused ourprimary analyses on life satisfaction. We report the resultsof the other subjective well-being measures in the sup-plementary material. The results are statistically equiva-lent regardless of whether we focus on life satisfaction,financial satisfaction, positive affect, or SWB.

Financial well-being. To assess a specific domain ofwell-being, we also examined financial satisfaction. Toprovide this measure, respondents were asked ‘How satis-fied are you with the financial situation of your house-hold?’ on a scale ranging from 1 (Completely Dissatisfied)to 10 (Completely Satisfied). We also report these results inthe supplementary material.

Financial stress/concern. We conducted additionalanalyses that included a proxy for financial insecurity:a dummy variable for the years around the 2008 eco-nomic crisis (‘1’ represents people who took the surveyin 2008 and 2009). The 2008 financial crisis has beenshown to bring uncertainty about the economic futureof the countries, a situation that can lead citizens to feelfinancially insecure (e.g., Chung & van Oorschot, 2011).We included 2008, and 2009 in the dummy variable asthese years have been foun d to most clearly representthe effects of the financial crisis (Brunnermeier, 2009;Helleiner, 2011).

Demographic Controls (Individual-Level). Followingprior research on time and money trade-offs (Whillanset al., 2017), we controlled for individual characteristicsthat could otherwise explain our results including age,gender, household income, employment status, and

education (See supplementary material for the variablenames of covariates from the WVS).

Demographic controls (country-level). We con-trolled for GDP per capita in US international dollars(GDP) from the World Bank database and country andwave fixed effects to account for factors that could differacross countries and years.

Data set overview. Overall, we obtained a data set witharound 220,000 observations, 79 countries and five wavesthat covered the 1989–2016 time period (except for 1992,1993, 1994 and 2015 as these years did not contain our keyvariables of interest).

Results

Hypothesis 1: The tendency to value leisure morethan work predicts subjective well-being acrosscountries

In our first set of analyses, we examined whether the ten-dency to value leisure more than work predicted the sub-jective well-being of nations. We averaged the data forevery country over the 1989–2016 time period (N = 79)and predicted ameasure of subjective well-being (life satis-faction) from the tendency to value leisure more than workat the country level. Consistent with our predictions, acrossthe entire time span of interest (1989–2016), countries thatvalued leisure over work showed greater national life satis-faction (Figure 1).Next, we conducted regression analyses tomore rigorouslyexamine H1. Taking every country and year into considera-tion (N = 220,000), respondents who valued leisure morethan work reported higher life satisfaction, even after con-trolling for demographic factors, the log of GDP per capitalagged by one year1, as well as wave and country fixedeffects (B = 0.062, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.052, 0.073; Table 1,column 1). Respondents who valued leisure more thanwork also reportedhigher financial satisfaction, higher posi-tive affect and greater subjective well-being on our compo-sitemeasure controlling for our key demographic variables.See supplementary material for full regression models.

Furthermore, we extended Hypothesis 1 by examin-ing whether the tendency to value leisure more thanwork predicted subjective well-being across countrieswith different level of wealth. The positive associationbetween valuing leisure over work and life satisfactionheld in high and low GDP countries, even after control-ling for individual-level covariates, year fixed effects, andthe log of GDP per capita lagged by one year (High GDPcountries: B = 0.049, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.036, 0.063] LowGDP countries: B = 0.081, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.064, 0.099;

THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 3

Figure 1. Average of value of leisure over work and average life satisfaction between 1989 and 2016 by country. The fitted OLSregression is: y = 7.168 + 1.24x (Adj. R2 = 0.21).

Table 1. Ordinary Least Squares regressions for life satisfaction. World Values Survey, 79 countries, 5 waves (1989–2016).Dependent variable: Life satisfaction

Full sample(1)

High GDP(2)

Low GDP(3)

Leisure-work importance (Higher = leisure) 0.062*** 0.049*** 0.081***(0.005) (0.007) (0.009)

Age −0.003*** −0.002*** −0.004***(0.0005) (0.001) (0.001)

Male −0.061*** −0.067*** −0.050***(0.012) (0.014) (0.019)

Years old finished education 0.002*** 0.001 0.005***(0.001) (0.001) (0.002)

Employment status (Ref.: Employed full- time)Employed part-time −0.086*** −0.081*** −0.125***

(0.021) (0.025) (0.035)Self-employed −0.037** −0.013 −0.066**

(0.019) (0.025) (0.028)Unemployed −0.414*** −0.541*** −0.301***

(0.020) (0.027) (0.030)Housewife 0.129*** 0.177*** 0.037

(0.019) (0.024) (0.032)Student 0.157*** 0.138*** 0.146***

(0.022) (0.029) (0.035)Retired 0.018 0.023 −0.089**

(0.022) (0.026) (0.042)Other −0.182*** −0.339*** −0.092

(0.041) (0.056) (0.060)Scale of income 0.227*** 0.180*** 0.301***

(0.003) (0.003) (0.004)Log of GDP per capita t-1 −0.271*** 0.219 −0.599***

(0.061) (0.141) (0.081)Constant 7.126*** 3.627*** 12.325***

(0.540) (1.313) (0.751)Observations 154,216 89,687 64,529R2 0.186 0.130 0.204Adjusted R2 0.185 0.130 0.203Residual Std. Error 2.073 (df = 154120) 1.968 (df = 89625) 2.195 (df = 64476)F Statistic 369.661*** (df = 95; 154120) 220.146*** (df = 61; 89625) 316.949*** (df = 52; 64476)

Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. Standard errors in parentheses. All models include wave and country fixed effects.

4 L. MACCHIA AND A. V. WHILLANS

Table 1, columns 2 and 3). See supplementary materialfor full regression models.

Hypothesis 2: Prioritizing leisure over work predictssubjective well-being across countries, byprotecting citizens from the negative effects offinancial worries

Prior research suggests that valuing time over moneyprotects people from the negative effects of stress thatcan occur in everyday life (e.g., time stress; Whillans et al.,2017). Thus, we examined whether the tendency tovalue leisure over work would lessen the negativeimpact of a common stress that people worldwideexperience: financial stress. To explore this possibility,we examined whether the tendency to value leisure overwork was protective of the negative effects of the 2008financial crisis on subjective well-being.

Consistent with this hypothesis, respondents whotook the survey around the 2008 financial crisis andwho valued leisure more than work, reported higherlife satisfaction, even after controlling for demographicfactors, the log of GDP per capita lagged by one year,and wave and country fixed effects, B = 0.068, p < 0.001,95% CI [0.044, 0.067] (Table 2, column 1). The results forlife satisfaction were only significant for low GDP coun-tries (High GDP countries: B = 0.026, p = 0.273, 95% CI[−0.020, 0.072]. Low GDP countries: B = 0.080, p = 0.004,95% CI [0.026, 0.135]) (Table 2, columns 2 and 3). Seesupplementary material for full regression models.

Discussion

Using a large-scale data set with 220,000 respondentsfrom nearly 80 countries, we provide the first empiricalevidence that valuing leisure over work predicts subjec-tive well-being at the individual and country level. Priorresearch provided causal evidence that prioritizing timeover money is beneficial for the happiness of the indivi-duals (Whillans et al., 2017) but no prior research hadlooked at this association at the country level or acrossdifferent countries around the world. In our analyses, theimpact of valuing leisure over work on life satisfactionwas similar in magnitude to the impact of GDP (B = 0.05vs. B = 0.04) attesting to the idea that factors other thanmoney can predict the happiness of nations.

The positive association between valuing leisure overwork and well-being held in high and low GDP countriesand after controlling for individual-level and country-level covariates such as income and education. Ourapproach of including wave and country fixed effectsallowed us to rule out changes in political climate as anexplanatory factor. We also found evidence for a novel

mechanism: valuing leisure over work promoted well-being by protecting people from the negative effects offinancial insecurity on well-being. Additional analysessuggest that these results were driven by citizens oflow GDP countries, who were most protected from thefinancial crisis when they reported valuing leisure overwork.

These results add to a growing body of literaturesuggesting that money (GDP) is not the only factorthat matters for citizens’ happiness (Blanchflower &Oswald, 2004; Easterlin, 1974; Luttmer, 2005). Withthese findings in mind, an important question to ask iswhether there is any way to shift citizen’s time andmoney orientations to better promote happiness. Anappealing answer to this question is that the role ofpolicymakers is critical: In the World Values Survey, theproportion of people who valued leisure more than workvaried from 40% (e.g., Netherlands 39.67%, Australia38.74%, UK 38.22%) to 1.2% (e.g., Philippines 1.55%,Burkina Faso 1.52%, Tanzania 1.16%, see supplementarymaterial). In general, Latin America and Africa were theregions where a lower number of people valued leisureover work (Figure 2).

Thus, the existence of policies that encourage citizensto make time-related decisions (such as incentivizingemployees to take their paid vacations) could be vital.Indeed, such regulations could make valuing leisurepossible and more socially desirable.

At the employee-level, workplaces could start to system-atically reward employees with time. For example, a pilotprogramme at Stanford University School of Medicine thataimed to mitigate the consequences of time-related stressof academic medicine found that flexibility policies anda time-banking system that rewarded employees withtime-saving services like housecleaning had positive impli-cations forwell-being. Employeeswho tookpart in this pilotstudy reported higher satisfaction with professional sup-port regarding long-term career goals and personal life andwere less likely to postpone their vacations and healthhabits due to a lack of time (Fassiotto, Simard, Sandborg,Valantine, & Raymond, 2018).

At the country-level, work-life balance policies aregaining popularity in the happiest countries around theworld. The Gothenburg City Council in Sweden, a top 10country in the World Happiness Report (Helliwell, Layard,& Sachs, 2018) switched from an eight-hour to a six-hourworking day and employees who took part in this trialreported higher happiness, less stress, showed greaterproductivity and took less sick leave (Oltermann, 2017).Relatedly, in an attempt to reduce the risk of burnout andoverwork for employees, the French government nowrequires companies with more than 50 employees torestrict email hours: workers should not send or answer

THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 5

emails after work (Morris, 2017). These and related policiescould help citizens shift focus from money to time andincrease citizens’ happiness.

While the current data does not speak to all possibleunderlying mechanisms, another pathway by whichvaluing leisure could promote happiness is by encoura-ging social connection. One of the most enjoyable activ-ities in most people’s day is socializing (e.g., (Krueger,Kahneman, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2009); for recentanalyses using the American Time Use Survey, see:https://osf.io/tgkn4/), and researchers have argued thatsimply thinking about time makes people more inclinedto invest in social activities and relationships (Aaker,Rudd, & Mogilner, 2011). Given the central importanceof relationships for happiness (e.g., Diener, Seligman,Choi, & Oishi, 2018), it is possible that prioritizing timeover money promotes well-being to the extent that thisvalue propels greater investment in cultivating relation-ships. Consistent with this reasoning, Hershfield et al.

(2016) found that among people who said they wouldlike to have more time (vs. money), those who reportedthat they would spend their additional time with otherpeople exhibited greater happiness. Thus, people whovalue leisure more than work likely spend more timesocializing, explaining why valuing leisure over work islinked to greater happiness in these data (see also:Whillans & Dunn, 2018). Future research should explorewhether increased time spent socializing predicts thecross-cultural differences in happiness observed here.

Prioritizing leisure may promote well-being by pro-tecting people from the negative effects of stress.Consistent with this idea, people who valued leisuremore than work were less negatively affected by finan-cial insecurity. These findings are consistent withresearch showing that prioritizing time protects peoplefrom time stress (Whillans et al., 2017). Across studies,respondents were asked how overwhelmed they felt bythe demands of daily life (Whillans et al., 2017). Among

Table 2. Ordinary Least Squares regressions for life satisfaction with 2008 financial crisis indicator by low and high GDP countries.World Values Survey, 79 countries, 5 waves (1989–2016).

Dependent variable: Life satisfaction

Full sample(1)

High GDP countries(2)

Low GDP countries(3)

Leisure-work value (Higher = leisure) 0.055*** 0.046*** 0.073***(0.006) (0.007) (0.009)

2008 financial crisis (Yes=1) 0.079* 0.455*** −0.124*(0.033) (0.044) (0.057)

Leisure-work value (Higher = leisure) x 2008 financial crisis(Yes=1)

0.068***(0.018)

0.026(0.024)

0.080**(0.028)

Age −0.003*** −0.002*** −0.004***(0.0005) (0.001) (0.001)

Male −0.061*** −0.067*** −0.050**(0.012) (0.014) (0.019)

Years old finished education 0.002** 0.001 0.005**(0.001) (0.001) (0.002)

Employment status (Ref.: Employed full- time)Employed part-time −0.086*** −0.076** −0.127***

(0.021) (0.025) (0.035)Self-employed −0.037* −0.013 −0.065*

(0.019) (0.025) (0.028)Unemployed −0.413*** −0.540*** −0.301***

(0.020) (0.027) (0.030)Housewife 0.130*** 0.177*** 0.039

(0.019) (0.024) (0.032)Student 0.157*** 0.139*** 0.143***

(0.022) (0.029) (0.035)Retired 0.019 0.024 −0.089*

(0.022) (0.026) (0.042)Other −0.181*** −0.321*** −0.091

(0.041) (0.056) (0.060)Scale of income 0.227*** 0.181*** 0.301***

(0.003) (0.003) (0.004)Log of GDP per capita t-1 −0.267*** −0.088 −0.612***

(0.062) (0.144) (0.081)Constant 7.079*** 6.428*** 12.444***

(0.541) (1.340) (0.752)Observations 154,216 89,687 64,529R2 0.186 0.131 0.204Adjusted R2 0.185 0.131 0.203Residual Std. Error 2.073 (df = 154,118) 1.967 (df = 89,623) 2.195 (df = 64,474)F Statistic 362.246*** (df = 97;

154,118)215.127*** (df = 63;

89,623)305.624*** (df = 54;

64,474)

Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. Standard errors in parentheses. All models include wave and country fixed effects.

6 L. MACCHIA AND A. V. WHILLANS

individuals who spent money on time-saving purchases,the typically observed relationship between time stressand life satisfaction was attenuated. In the current ana-lyses, we extend this prior research by showing thatprioritizing time is protective from the negative effectsof financial stress. Prioritizing time might help peoplecope with stress because they spend money on time-saving services that allow them to directly deal with theirdemands (i.e, hiring a housecleaner when working over-time: Whillans, Pow, & Norton, 2018). Prioritizing timecould also help people cope with financial stressorsbecause they are less likely to derive self-esteem fromtheir finances and are less negatively impacted bychanges to their financial situation (see Park, Ward, &Naragon-Gainey, 2017). Future research should furtherdisentangle the mechanisms underlying these results.

In our correlational study, the benefits of prioritizingleisure over work were not moderated by cross-culturaldifferences such as income or education. However, it ispossible that other cross-cultural differences could influ-ence the benefits of valuing time. For example, indivi-duals from certain cultural backgrounds may beparticularly prone to experience guilt about prioritizingtime. People who endorse the protestant work ethic –which emphasizes hard work as a moral obligation(Furnham, 1982) –may feel especially guilty about prior-itizing leisure over work, undermining well-being.Consistent with this reasoning, in two correlational stu-dies with a total of over 1,000 participants, the endorse-ment of the protestant work ethic was linked to greaterfeelings of guilt about making time-saving purchases,

undermining the well-being benefits (Whillans, Lee-Yoon, & Dunn, 2019).

The hedonic consequences of prioritizing time couldalso depend on broader social norms about time use. Thetypical link between time stress and happiness does notemerge in places where it is normative to work a lot ofhours. Combining data from the Gallup World Poll and theUS Current Population Survey (N = 954,225), researchersfound evidence that when people live in areas where theaverage number of hours worked by their peers is relativelyhigh, the negative impact of time stress is attenuated(Whillans, Ward, Collins, & Norton, 2019). In contrast,when people lived in areas where the average number ofhours worked by peers is relatively low, they experienceda greater negative impact of time stress on subjective well-being. This finding points to the possibility that prioritizingtime over money may offer relatively few benefits whenpeople are surrounded by other people who have verylittle free time. Additional work is needed to understandthe role of these other mechanisms – protestant work ethicand work norms – in shaping the potential benefits ofprioritizing time as well as to further determine the causalnature of these relationships.

Time is the most precious resource that people have,yet citizens and policy makers often believe money willresult in greater happiness (Whillans & West, 2018). Thecurrent research is the first to show that prioritizing workover leisure comes at a cost to national happiness. Futureresearch should examine the role of time-related policiesin shaping citizens’ priorities, reducing distress, andimproving the health and happiness of nations.

Figure 2. Proportion of people who value leisure over work by region, World Values Survey, 79 countries, 5 waves (1989–2016).

THE JOURNAL OF POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 7

Note

1. Including the lagged measure of the log of GDP per capita(i.e., a country’s national income) allows us to reduce theeffects of reverse causality: Although current subjectivewell-being may contribute to a country’s GDP per capita,current subjective well-being cannot contribute to pastlevels of GDP per capita. Wave and country fixed effectsallow us to account for other cultural and political factorsthat take place in specific years and countries that mightnot be captured by other control variables.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Lucía Macchia http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9558-4747

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