Competing to Belong and Working to Pay for It: A Socioeconomic Model of the Link Between Productivity and Work-Life Balance
International Review of Economics 67(4), pp. 533-548, 2020
Posted: 15 Oct 2020 Last revised: 17 Nov 2020
Date Written: August 25, 2020
Abstract
I model and simulate an increasingly productive labor economy in which heterogeneous agents choose how much to work, how much to consume and where to belong. The agents like to belong to "clubs" (e.g., neighborhoods, schools, workplaces) which are formed, quality-ranked, and priced endogenously. I examine the effect of productivity gains, paid out either through wage hikes or universal income grants, on club prices, leisure time, and consumption. I find that income grants are more prone than wage hikes to be dissipated in the bidding to join the "better" clubs. The findings imply that socioeconomic competition channeled through market institutions may hinder the translation of productivity growth into better work-life balance.
Keywords: socioeconomic competition, working time, leisure, universal basic income, clubs, work-life balance
JEL Classification: D71, J22, O40, Z13
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation