The Changing (Dis-)Utility of Work

Abstract

ost economists view monetary rewards as by far the most important aspect of jobs and careers. The disutility of supplying one hour of labor is assumed to be the same whether that hour is spent building cars on an assembly line, waiting tables at a restaurant, teaching a class, or pitching for the Chicago White Sox. In consequence, in conventional models, the tradeoffs workers make between consumption and leisure can be assessed solely by looking at hours worked and wages.Yet it is obvious to many workers that a job involves more than just forfeiting some leisure time in return for a wage (Schwartz 2015). Jobs differ in the physical and mental toll they take on workers, as well as in the psychological rewards they provide, such as autonomy and meaning (Kalleberg 2011).Our study asks how the major occupational shifts in the postwar period have manifested in changes in the nonpecuniary costs and benefits of work. Many fewer people work on assembly lines now than in 1950, while many more work in services and sales. Women and minorities have moved in large numbers into jobs where they once faced substantial barriers to entry. How have these shifts changed the aggregate amount of hardship or disutility that people experience from their work, the aggregate psychological rewards or utility that they derive from it, and the distribution of disutility and utility across the population?

Socially Useless Jobs

“…See alsoSteger, Dik, and Duffy (2012) for an extensive description of several dimensions of meaningful work andKaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl (2018) for an analysis of how meaningful U.S. workers find their work.2 See https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/08/12/british-jobs-meaningless/.4 / ROBERT DUR AND MAX VAN LENT…”

Automation, workers’ skills and job satisfaction

“…However, only a few studies have so far explicitly investigated the relationships between the widespread diffusion and application of digital technologies and job satisfaction [ 25 ]. Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl [ 6 ], using data from the American Time Use survey, discusses the nonpecuniary implications of changes in the occupational structure in the US in recent decades, i.e. the effects of these structural changes on different aspects of job satisfaction such as reported happiness, stress and meaning at work.…”

“…This recent research has so far focused on the effects of automation, industrial robots and artificial intelligence on labor demand and wages. However, while employment and wages are two central dimensions shaping individual workers’ well-being, it is also important to point out that other non-pecuniary aspects do contribute to shape workers’ well-being, and that automation may potentially have important impacts on these [ 6 ]. Specifically, if workers fear that their occupation might be replaced by a smart machine in the future, such prospect and uncertainty about future working conditions may arguably affect their job satisfaction at present [ 7 , 8 ].…”

Public Policy in a Time of Crisis: A Framework for Evaluating Canada’s COVID-19 Income Support Programs

“…that is, work as a 'necessary curse' that assumes people facing zero wages will always prefer leisure to work (Budd 2011; see also Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl 2018). In the simplest neoclassical models, leisure includes all non-market work, such as childcare and domestic responsibilities.…”