In this paper, we use five decades of time-use surveys to document trends in the allocation of time within the United States. We find that a dramatic increase in leisure time lies behind the relatively stable number of market hours worked between 1965 and 2003. Specifically, using a variety of definitions for leisure, we show that leisure for men increased by roughly six to nine hours per week (driven by a decline in market work hours) and for women by roughly four to eight hours per week (driven by a decline in home production work hours). Lastly, we document a growing inequality in leisure that is the mirror image of the growing inequality of wages and expenditures, making welfare calculation based solely on the latter series incomplete.

We use scanner data and time diaries to document how households substitute time for money through shopping and home production. We document substantial heterogeneity in prices paid for identical goods for the same area and time, with older households shopping the most and paying the lowest prices. Doubling shopping frequency lowers a good's price by 7 to 10 percent. We estimate the shopper's price of time and use this series to estimate an elasticity of substitution between time and goods in home production of roughly 1.8. The observed lifecycle time allocation implies a consumption series that differs markedly from expenditures. (JEL D12, D91)