This study presents descriptive and causal evidence on the role of time resources on chronic stress. In a first step, we show that time scarcity originating from responsibilities for childcare is related to both subjective well-being and a physiological stress marker (hair cortisol concentration) of mothers. In a second step, we provide causal evidence that children’s participation in a mentoring program (one afternoon per week for about nine months) significantly reduces subjectively perceived time scarcity of mothers and objectively measured chronic stress. Additionally, we investigate heterogeneous treatment effects and find that mothers who reported particularly high levels of time scarcity at baseline respond most strongly to their children’s mentoring treatment. Overall, our findings imply that a reduction of time scarcity decreases maternal chronic stress, which, in turn, is likely to have extensive health benefits for mothers and positive effects on their children’s outcomes.
Co-authors: Thomas Dohmen (Universität Bonn), Armin Falk (Universität Bonn) and Fabian Kosse (Universität München)