A team of Stanford researchers has completed a study according to which unemployed people tend to value free time at an almost similar level as people who do have a job. The study focused on two different groups of employed and unemployed and the results were quite surprising. The main explanation relies on the fact that everyone is happier when they are allowed to spend more time with others. Spending a weekend with family or friends is a social activity that is placed on a same-level pedestal by both employed and unemployed. The happiness spike also tends to dramatically drop at the end of the weekend when the work week begins for both groups as well.

The Figures Speak For Themselves

It would seem that, according to the study completed by researchers at Stanford University, the level of emotional well-being tend to grow with up to 15 percent during the weekends. People feel happier, they enjoy life more, and they are less stressed and sad or angry. The study was done on more than half a million Americans with the help of the Gallup Daily Poll and it lasted for eight years. Scientists have collected data pertaining to the American Time Use Survey which they used to better understand the source for the weekend happiness of the studied subjects. Unemployed people get 75 percent of the well-being boost that characterizes the level of happiness people who do have a job actually experience. So the data clearly shows that the weekend happiness is not strongly related to the lack of the necessity to go to work.  

Weekend Socializing With Friends And Family

While during the week work people tend to spend half an hour on average socializing with friends to over an hour during the weekends, on a daily basis. While one might spend about three and a half hours with family members during the work days, when the weekend comes, the same person will most likely end up spending up to seven hours with siblings. The same pattern can also be observed when it comes to people who do not have a job. Moreover, the same study has shown that people tend to feel better with the increase in the number of hours one spends together with family and friends.

 The reducing of negative emotions such as stress and sadness or anxiety and the spike in the amount of positive emotions such as happiness and the general state of well-being, of feeling content and safe are all the result of spending more social time during the weekends. Another important conclusion of the same study is that time needs to be treated as a network good, which means it needs to be properly shared so it can be most useful. 

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