SINCE 2010 the American unemployment rate has fallen from about 10% to about 6%. Ask an economist whether a lower unemployment rate is good and they will look at you sideways. Ask an epidemiologist and you might get a different answer.
Sleep is good for you. Lotsofresearch links lack of shut-eye to things like obesity and diabetes. Less understood is the economics of sleep. Three scientists collected data on state-level unemployment rates from 2003 to 2012. They found sleep-time data from the American Time Use survey.
There are a few interesting nuggets. Each day black people sleep for nine minutes fewer than white; 50-59-year-olds were the least dormant age group. There has been a strong secular trend over the past decade towards more sleep. The authors also solemnly point out the limitations of their data: they note that “sleep time” is only a measure of time set aside to sleep and thus it is “possible that other activities that take place in bed are reported as sleep.”
As you may remember, there was a rather large economic blip from 2007 onwards. Unemployment shot up from 4.5% to 10% in two years. Growing joblessness prompted higher sleepiness. An extra percentage point increase in state-level unemployment leads to about an extra minute in bed.
There are some obvious explanations: with higher unemployment, some people had more time on their hands and this translated into extra kipping. But the researchers show that even when taking into account a person’s job status, higher state unemployment still led to more sleep. Cultural factors may have something to do with it. If your partner (or even your friends) is sleeping more because they are jobless, you may do too.
So as unemployment drops, people may spend less time in bed. That might be bad news for a person's health. Yet as we pointed out last year, more evidence points towards the health-boosting effects of growth, not their health-sapping ones.
