Whillans, A. V., Dunn, E. W., Smeets, P., Bekkers, R., &Norton, M. I. (2017). Buying time promotes happiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201706541.

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

 

 

https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706541114