Why Relax When You Can Work?
People tend to assume that education opens doors. That may be true in a lot of cases, but for some American men in the past 20 years, more education has meant less leisure time. The Increase in Leisure Inequality, a study by Mark Aguiar of the University of Rochester and Erik Hurst of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, found that since 1965, both men and women have had more time to play. But since 1985, a leisure-time gap has developed among men: Less educated men have devoted more time to leisure, while more educated guys have kept their shoulders to the wheel. The authors found that higher unemployment rates among less educated men accounted for only about one third of the inequality. What's the main explanation? It could be that as men get more education—and thus more earning power—it becomes more rewarding for them to spend time working. After all, they're making more money.
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