Men at Work: Time Investment and Subjective Well-being

Compared to their college-educated peers, men without college degrees have become less attached to the labor market over time. Much research has focused on economic factors, suggesting that the decrease in real wages for less-educated men discourages work among this group. The differences in subjective well-being that men experience at work are less understood. Work encompasses more than just financial compensation; college-educated men may work more because their jobs provide a higher level of subjective well-being. Using data from the 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2021 waves of the Well-Being Module of the American Time Use Survey, we investigate whether college-educated men experience more positive and fewer negative momentary feelings at work than their less-educated peers. We find no such evidence. In fact, among all men, spending time at work is linked to fewer positive and more negative momentary feelings than engaging in other activities. This pattern does not differ by men’s education or age and is robust to the inclusion of a rich set of covariates and individual fixed effects. Approaches to encouraging work for less-educated men should consider highlighting the long-term economic and social rewards of stable employment, which may be worth experiencing work’s day-to-day negative feelings.