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  • 2022
  • Article
  • Scientific Reports

Alleviating Time Poverty Among the Working Poor: A Pre-Registered Longitudinal Field Experiment

By: A.V. Whillans and Colin West
  • Format:Electronic
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Abstract

Poverty entails more than a scarcity of material resources—it also involves a shortage of time. To examine the causal benefits of reducing time poverty, we conducted a longitudinal feld experiment over six consecutive weeks in an urban slum in Kenya with a sample of working mothers, a population who is especially likely to experience severe time poverty. Participants received vouchers for services designed to reduce their burden of unpaid labor. We compared the efect of these vouchers against equivalently valued unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) and a neutral control condition. In contrast to our pre-registered hypotheses, a pre-registered Bayesian ANCOVA indicated that the timesaving, UCT, and control conditions led to similar increases in subjective well-being, reductions in perceived stress, and decreases in relationship conflict (Cohen’s d’s ranged from 0.25 to 0.85 during the treatment weeks and from 0.21 to 0.36 at the endline). Exploratory analyses revealed that the time-saving vouchers and UCTs produced these benefits through distinct psychological pathways. We conclude by discussing the implications of these results for economic development initiatives.

Keywords

Time; Subjective Well Being; Administrative Costs; Friction; Poverty; Well-being; Money; Perception; Kenya

Citation

Whillans, A.V., and Colin West. "Alleviating Time Poverty Among the Working Poor: A Pre-Registered Longitudinal Field Experiment." Art. 719. Scientific Reports 12 (2022).
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About The Author

Ashley V. Whillans

Negotiation, Organizations & Markets
→More Publications

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More from the Authors
  • The Emotional Rewards of Prosocial Spending Are Robust and Replicable in Large Samples By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Ashley V. Whillans
  • Perceived Job Difficulty Influences Unionization Support for Workers in Low-Wage Jobs By: Elizabeth R. Johnson and Ashley V. Whillans
  • The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Satisfaction of Workers in Low-Wage Jobs By: Elizabeth R Johnson and Ashley V. Whillans
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