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BY 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access July 16, 2019

Leisure time and labor productivity: a new economic view rooted from sociological perspective

  • Dan Cui , Xiang Wei , Dianting Wu , Nana Cui and Peter Nijkamp
From the journal Economics

Abstract

Most economists measure labor productivity based on activities conducted at places of work and do not consider leisure time in their calculations. In contrast, psychologists and sociologists argue that leisure has a positive role in the production process: leisure can improve individuals’ labor productivity by affecting their self-development. Using empirical data from 21 OECD countries, this study finds that leisure time has a dual effect on labor productivity in terms of per capita per hour GDP. Moreover, leisure time is nonlinearly associated with labor productivity (inverted U-shaped). When leisure time reaches the optimal level (5,813 hours), leisure has a compensatory effect on work and can positively influence labor productivity, but when leisure time exceeds the optimal value, leisure has a substitution effect on work and can negatively influence labor productivity.

JEL Classification: D24; D61

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Received: 2018-09-13
Revised: 2019-07-04
Accepted: 2019-07-09
Published Online: 2019-07-16
Published in Print: 2019-12-01

© 2019 Dan Cui et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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