That’s a significant bump in earnings for only one extra hour of sleep per week. What’s more, the researchers reported that sleeping an extra hour every night on average increases wages by a staggering 16%. In an interview on the Freakonomics podcast, Gibson acknowledges that the bump seems too dramatic to believe. Freakonomics’ Stephen Dubner pointed out, “That’s a bigger boost than you’d expect from one additional year of education!” But Gibson attributes the figure to the similarly dramatic dips in productivity that come from chronic sleep deprivation.
That said, it might not be the best idea to pack your things and move clear across your time zone. In their paper, Gibson and Shrader explain that wage increases seen in cities on the eastern edge of time zones are offset by increased real estate prices in those areas. Nevertheless, the results have profound implications for workers, businesses, and national governments, leading the researchers to call for governments to conduct cost-benefit analyses of certain policies that affect sleep time, such as daylight savings time and time zones.
What if your workday was structured around the path of the sun?
In the same episode of Freakonomics, Dubner talks with Jens Bonke about early birds and night owls. For some workers, it’s less about solar cues, and more about how their bodies are programmed. Bonke, an economist and senior researcher at the Rockwool Foundation in Copenhagen, claims that society’s structure favors morning-type people. After analyzing data from the Danish time-use survey, Bonke concluded that early risers earn 4% to 5% more.
In the meantime, night owls are often left trying to pose as early birds, struggling to adjust to an early schedule after reverting to their naturally late sleep patterns on the weekend. There is a genetic component to whether you’re a natural night owl, so these workers struggle to keep up for no fault of their own, and employers miss out on valuable worker output as a result. Bonke says one way to make things more fair for nights owls, and to encourage greater productivity in general, is to provide greater workplace flexibility. That way, all employees (and businesses) will have the opportunity to work and earn to their full potential.
http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/why-people-who-sleep-better-earn-more-money.html/?a=viewall
