The impact of work and leisure importance on happiness in Egypt

Abstract

The classical labour supply theory and the theory of allocation of time have discussed time allocation decisions between work and leisure and their utility outcome. In recent studies, happiness is discussed as a component in the utility function. In this paper, we examine the three-way relationship between work, leisure, and happiness. We use an Ordered Logistic model to analyse data from the World Values Survey (WVS) for the years 2001, 2008, 2012 and 2018 for Egypt. Our results suggest that higher importance assigned to work is associated with higher levels of happiness, and higher importance assigned to leisure over work is associated with lower levels of happiness. The study provides a host of alternative specifications using subsamples of the original sample. The study concludes that the contribution of work to the happiness of individuals is linked to cultural and social attributes of the Egyptian society rather than material outcomes.