Listening test

3.
 
How then have Messrs Aguiar and Hurst uncovered a more relaxed America, where 
leisure has actually increased? It is partly to do with the definition of work, and partly to 
do with the data they base their research upon. Most American labour studies rely on 
well-known official surveys, such as those collected by the Bureau of Labour Statistics 
(BLS) and the Census Bureau, that concentrate on paid work. These are good at gleaning 
trends in factories and offices, but they give only a murky impression of how Americans 
use the rest of their time. Messrs Aguiar and Hurst think that the hours spent at your 
employer’s are too narrow a definition of work. Americans also spend lots of time 
shopping, cooking, running errands and keeping house. These chores are among the 
main reasons why people say they are so overstretched, especially working women with 
children. 
4.
 
However, Messrs Aguiar and Hurst show that Americans actually spend much less time 
doing them than they did 40 years ago. There has been a revolution in the household 
economy. Appliances, home delivery, the internet, 24-hour shopping, and more varied 
and affordable domestic services have increased flexibility and freed up people’s time. 
5.
 
The data for Messrs Aguiar and Hurst’s study comes from time-use diaries that American 
social scientists have been collecting methodically, once a decade, since 1965. These 
diaries ask people to give detailed information on everything they did the day before, 
and for how long they did it. The beauty of such surveys, which are also collected in 
Australia and many European countries, is that they cover the whole day, not just the 
time at work, and they also have a built-in accuracy check, since they must always 
account for every hour of the day. 
6.
 
Do the numbers add up? One thing missing in Messrs Aguiar’s and Hurst’s work is that 
they have deliberately ignored the biggest leisure-gainers in the population, the growing 
number of retired folk. The two economists excluded anyone who has reached 65 years 
old, as well as anyone under that age who retired early. So America’s true leisure boom 
is even bigger than their estimate.