Mental Accounts and COVID-19: How the Pandemic has Altered Employee Perceptions of Time Use

Abstract

Covid-19 has undoubtedly had many effects on the American workforce since its arrival to the United States in March 2020. The focus of this paper will be on the specific impacts of the pandemic on schedules and endogenous time allocation mechanisms of United States workers. An important question is how individuals have perceived these changes in their work and leisure lives, as understanding this helps not only to explain observed work and leisure trends stemming from internal time expenditure changes, but also can be used to inform strategies to solve schedule deficiencies or optimize subjective utility. To explore this question, a mental accounting perspective of time will be utilized in order to explain how changes brought on by the pandemic have specifically altered people9s perception of daily life and the amount of time they dedicate to work- and leisure-related activities. The paper begins with information on mental accounting and the psychological processes that contextualize and facilitate it, then moves on to linking money with time under mental accounting principles, and concludes with application of these principles to various aspects of work and leisure time within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, with synthesizing discussions and recommendations for future research.