Social
Running Out of Time? The Health Costs of Being Time Poor Laura Chen* Laura Chen laurachen@g.harvard.edu
Introduction: Theories of scarcity and chronic stress suggest that time poverty – a lack of discretionary time outside of work and other responsibilities – may harm health and compound the effects of material deprivation, but these effects are not well studied. Using causal methods and longitudinal data (2017–2023) from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we estimate the effects of time poverty – alone and in combination with income poverty – on cardiometabolic and mental health.
Methods: The analytic sample included n=14,900 adult respondents free of cardiovascular disease in 2017. At each wave, respondents were classified as time poor, income poor, both, or neither based on household income and total weekly hours in paid work, housework, childcare, and personal care. Stabilized inverse probability of treatment weights were constructed from sociodemographic characteristics and time–varying data on employment, earnings, functional status, and household composition. We fit marginal structural models to estimate the effects of persistent time and/or income poverty on odds of CVD, hypertension, obesity, depression, and emotional/psychiatric problems.
Results: Time poverty alone had little effect on most outcomes but increased the odds of emotional/psychiatric problems (OR 1.41, 1.04–1.81) relative to those who were neither time nor income poor. Income poverty in the absence of time poverty was associated with higher odds of CVD (OR 1.90, 1.15–3.15) and depression (OR 2.77, 1.77–4.33), and modestly higher odds of obesity (OR 1.32, 0.95–1.82). Being both time and income poor was associated with 1.59 times the odds of emotional/psychiatric problems (95% CI 1.12–2.63), and more than doubled the odds of obesity (OR 2.10, 1.43–3.10) and depression (OR 2.61, 1.45–4.68).
Discussion: These findings underscore time as an important, but understudied resource for health. When both time and money are scarce, the combined strain may be particularly harmful to health.
