Use your hourly earnings to decide which household tasks to outsource
Chinese residents averaged 1 hour 17 minutes of housework daily; among those who actually did housework that day, it was 1 hour 59 minutes. People buying time reported greater life satisfaction, and spending the same amount on time-saving help produced more immediate happiness than buying an object.
What it takes
The service fee varies. First spend a little time calculating your own hourly earnings.
What you may gain
China's 2024 time-use survey covered 38,500 households and 107,000 people, finding daily housework averages of 1 hour 17 minutes overall and 1 hour 59 minutes among participants. A separate study of 6,271 people in four countries linked time-saving purchases with greater life satisfaction. A real-world experiment also found greater immediate happiness when an equivalent sum bought time rather than material goods.
Context & considerations
Divide monthly after-tax income by actual monthly work hours, then compare the task's outsourcing price per hour. If outsourcing costs less and you will actually use the freed time for earning or rest, the source recommends it. Personal earnings and prices differ, so calculate your own answer. Whillans measured happiness, not the number of hours saved.
Research & references
Whillans, A. V., Dunn, E. W., Smeets, P., Bekkers, R., & Norton, M. I. (2017). Buying time promotes happiness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1706541114 ; National Bureau of Statistics of China (2024). Third National Time Use Survey Bulletin, No. 2. https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/zxfb/202410/t20241031_1957216.html