Buying time promotes happiness

1. Ashley V. Whillans^a,¹,
2. Elizabeth W. Dunn^b,
3. Paul Smeets^c,
4. Rene Bekkers^d, and
5. Michael I. Norton^a

http://www.pnas.org/content/114/32/8523.full#ref-3

I think this is an important topic to consider on improving an offering. In the Value Proposition model we teach in our Org Growth class at Kellogg, we focus on risk and effort levels as a way to think beyond pure cost and functionality. I think time is also major variable to consider.  

Significance

Despite rising incomes, people around the world are feeling increasingly pressed for time, undermining well-being. We show that the time famine of modern life can be reduced by using money to buy time. Surveys of large, diverse samples from four countries reveal that spending money on time-saving services is linked to greater life satisfaction. To establish causality, we show that working adults report greater happiness after spending money on a time-saving purchase than on a material purchase. This research reveals a previously unexamined route from wealth to well-being: spending money to buy free time.

Abstract

Around the world, increases in wealth have produced an unintended consequence: a rising sense of time scarcity. We provide evidence that using money to buy time can provide a buffer against this time famine, thereby promoting happiness. Using large, diverse samples from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and The Netherlands (n = 6,271), we show that individuals who spend money on time-saving services report greater life satisfaction. A field experiment provides causal evidence that working adults report greater happiness after spending money on a time-saving purchase than on a material purchase. Together, these results suggest that using money to buy time can protect people from the detrimental effects of time pressure on life satisfaction.

In recent decades, incomes have risen in many countries (1, 2), potentially exacerbating a new form of poverty: from Germany to Korea to the United States, people with higher incomes report greater time scarcity (3). Feelings of time stress are in turn linked to lower well-being, including reduced happiness, increased anxiety, and insomnia (4⇓–6). Time stress is also a critical factor underlying rising rates of obesity: lacking time is a primary reason that people report failing to eat healthy foods or exercise regularly (7, 8). In theory, rising incomes could offer a way out of the “time famine” of modern life (9), because wealth offers the opportunity to have more free time, such as by paying more to live closer to work. However, some evidence suggests that wealthier people spend more time engaging in stressful activities, such as shopping and commuting (10). Experimental research shows that simply leading people to feel that their time is economically valuable induces them to feel that they do not have enough of it (11).

A great deal of attention has been devoted to reducing financial scarcity, but there is relatively little rigorous research examining how to reduce feelings of time scarcity, which in fact may offer a particularly difficult challenge given that time, unlike money, is inherently finite. Could allocating discretionary income to buy free time—such as by paying to delegate common household chores, like cleaning, shopping, and cooking— reduce the negative effects of the modern time famine, thereby promoting well-being? The growth of the sharing economy has made time-saving services increasingly accessible, but no empirical research has tested whether using such services enhances happiness.

From our theoretical perspective, buying time should protect people from the negative impact of time stress on life satisfaction. This conceptualization draws on the social support literature, in which research on the “buffering hypothesis” has demonstrated that receiving social support can protect people from experiencing the negative consequences of stress (12). That is, the typical relationship between stress and reduced well-being is attenuated for individuals who are able to access social support (13⇓–15). We suggest that buying time may provide an alternate mechanism to receiving the support needed to cope with daily demands, such that the relationship between time stress and reduced life satisfaction should be attenuated among people who use money to access more time.