Do the Wealthy Work Harder Than the Rest?

Posted: 27 Apr 2012 12:09 PM PDT

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.

: Everett Collection

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.)

Of course, some of the decline is due to non-educated people being unemployed or under-employed. Some of their leisure time is simply “not being able to work” time.

Yet the research shows that up to half the gap is due to unemployment. Mr. Hurst says the leisure gap still remains between employed high-educated workers and employed low-educated workers. It also persists among unemployed high-education people and unemployed low-education people.

While the study doesn't seek to prove that the high earners work harder “that story would be consistent with the data,” said Mr. Hurst.

Do you think higher earners work harder?