The impacts of increasing leisure time on subjective health and life satisfaction

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationships between working hours, changes in time spent on leisure and sports activities, perceived health status, and individual life satisfaction. Data from the 2013 Taiwan Social Change Survey is employed in this study. The results show that more working hours significantly lower life satisfaction. Increasing leisure time can significantly improve subjective health, and better subjective health can significantly enhance life satisfaction. Furthermore, subjective health partially mediates the effect of leisure time on life satisfaction. However, the mediating effect does not exist for full-time employees although increasing leisure time can still improve life satisfaction. The reason for this could be that the subjective health of full-time employees is already better than that of those not working full-time. Initiatives leading to reduced working hours and increases in leisure time may increase life satisfaction and may result in reductions in medical expenses.