Consequences of Disability from the Perspective of Time Allocation

A significant proportion of the economics literature on the consequences of disability focuses on its implications for labor market activity and the effects of programs dedicated to supporting the disabled. This focus leaves out fundamental aspects of disability, and poor health more generally, which play a crucial role in directly determining individual and social welfare. In this policy brief, we report key results from a recent paper in which we examine the implications of disability from the perspective of time use (Hamermesh and Myck, 2025). Our analysis is based on the data from the American and the Polish Time Use Surveys and is complemented with time use information from several other countries. We examine how disability affects the variety of activities performed during the day by older individuals and how it changes the amount of time spent on the main, most common activities. Using information on how people value variety, we provide monetary estimates of the time cost of disability.