
Stress That Doesn't Pay: The Commuting Paradox (2004) [pdf] - ptd
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/20544/1/dp1278.pdf
======
crazygringo
> _Contrary to the prediction of equilibrium location theory, we find a large
> negative effect of commuting time on people’s satisfaction with life. People
> who commute 23 minutes (one way), which is the average commuting time in
> Germany, would have to earn 19 percent more per month on average in order to
> be fully compensated._

When I worked in Manhattan, I spent the extra $1,000/mo. to live within a
couple blocks of work, rather than a 45-min commute away off in Brooklyn like
most people I knew. It's _expensive_ to live next to work.

But here's the thing: I _always felt guilty about it_. That it was
"unnecessary" money to spend, even though I had it. That it was irresponsible.

However, I knew from (painful) experience it was still the rational thing to
do. Once you subtract time spent sleeping, at work, and "maintenance" (shower,
tidying, etc.) you really only have maybe 5 hours a day of personal time max.
If you commute 45 min each way... that's only 3.5 hours. And when you factor
in that you need a couple hours to relax, eat dinner, etc. -- that's the
difference between having time left over for a rewarding hobby or not, which
qualitatively changes your life in a fundamental way, and keeps you sane at
work. Whether it's going to the gym regularly, reading books, doing yoga or
dance, whatever it is.

But it's still _so hard_ to mentally justify paying such a premium for your
own leisure time. It's _really_ easy to tell yourself, no -- I'll save money,
commute, and I'll still manage to find the time, it'll be enough... because
you're optimistic you can have it all. But you can't. You'll lose your hobby
or sleep or your happiness.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
This is the justification for remote. You get the benefits of a full salary
while avoiding close-to-work living costs _and_ commuting time.

I spent a hellish couple of years in London living in a pleasant area but
commuting to and from a startup near the centre, and since then I've been
remote-only.

There are other trade-offs, but it's hard to beat for low stress levels and
free time.

~~~
ken
You avoid the close-to-work living costs, and also the close-to-work living
benefits.

I’d save time, but then I’d spend it driving into the city, anyway, to do most
of the things I want to do.

~~~
black_puppydog
clarification: I didn't downvote you. dunno why people would.

but if you feel like that, consider if you're living in the "right" place for
this. "remote" could mean instead of living in san francisco, living in a
small town far away. or heck, somewhere in europe, where I live in the very
city center on a student budget.

~~~
PascLeRasc
This probably won't be a popular opinion here, but some of us actually want to
live in San Francisco, and not just for the job market.

------
ptd
From the paper: An individual with a 60 minute commute has to earn 40 per cent
more money to be equally satisfied with life as an individual who can walk to
the office.

I found this very interesting, given the fact that I know a lot of people who
work in major cities but live outside the city for financial purposes. Might
make more sense to bite the bullet and pay high rent to live next to your
workplace.

This is complicated for couples though, because it is hard for you and your
partner to find employment in the same part of a city. So one of you will
probably have to make a sacrifice.

I would be very interested in how remote work figures into all of this. Does
the interaction with humans outweigh the benefits of being able to roll out of
bed and be at the office?

~~~
joejerryronnie
> Does the interaction with humans outweigh the benefits of being able to roll
> out of bed and be at the office?

I wonder if this harrowing 911 call sheds some light on this question:

[https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/i-work-from-
hom...](https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/i-work-from-home)

~~~
perspicace
I don’t consider working hours proper human interaction. It’s professional
interaction. Working from home is not recommended for every personality type.

------
Bubbadoo
I commuted for almost 20 years in the NY Metro area. My journey, on one of the
least reliable mass transit lines, took 4 hours from my day... if it was on
time. I was well-paid and lived in a nice home, in a great neighborhood. The
real problem with this commute is it takes over your life. During the work
week, there is no me time, no time for fun or hobbies. I would sandwich in
workouts and some downtime to unwind daily, but I was deeply sleep-deprived.
Sure, I slept on the train and meditated, but the lack of reliable
transportation on a daily basis really retarded any progress on those fronts.
And that impaired my ability to fully enjoy my family, actively participate in
my kids' upbringing and to genuinely enjoy life. I kind of had it all, yet,
that darn commute raised my stress levels so high, it was ruining every aspect
of life. I drank more than I wanted, and endured marital discord.

Moral of the story is look at your commute as the top factor determining your
quality of life. Think well and hard about that extra 30-60-90 minutes because
it means a bigger house and backyard.

~~~
bluesroo
I've been doing the same for only 4 months and I can feel a lot of similar
feelings beginning to set in. I have no idea how you managed it for so long!

------
hirako2000
I'm always surprised seeing so many people accepting to commute.

The time waste, the money waste, the environmental waste.

I guess they got sold on the idea they can listen to a podcast on the way to
the office...

It's important to think about what we do. Even if we are taken by the storm of
life. Pause, and think about what you are accepting to put yourself through.

~~~
tetris11
I guess I'm in the minority here, but I genuinely enjoy my commute to work.
It's the sole reason I turn up.

With my new place of work I pass through rolling hills, farms, vineyards,
rivers, and by the time I get to the office I am delightfully refreshed and my
heart is pumping.

When I was in London I would traverse the same distance, but loved weaving
through the narrow traffic, sprinting up the small hills, passing over the
river and then racing through central, fighting through the markets, and
feeling absolutely elated by the time I got into the office.

For this reason alone I always place myself at least 15km from my work place.
Its a nice transition between working mode and home mode, and its a good way
to separate the two.

Plus it's easier to justify home office to the boss on those super treacherous
days.

~~~
hirako2000
Right, it's not like you could make your own path of walking, riding a train,
a bus or your own car wherever you want, on your own terms by not _having to_
commute every single day.

But hey, good thing you have a beautiful scenery on the way to the office.
It's rarely the case for most commuters.

------
thorwasdfasdf
Right now, in the US, in many cities, we have minimum parking laws, that say
you need X number of parking slots per commercial space or per work area,
within some maximum distance of a couple thousand feet or less. And, yet
there's absolutely no minimum living space/apartments/residentials to speak
of.

This is completely backwards. We should have minimum living space requirements
within every work place. If you want to regulate things, regulate it well: No
places to live, then no places to work. If there were 1 place to live within
500 ft for every 1 job, then we wouldn't have this situation where most of the
population has to commute 2 hours every day polluting the planet with overly
long commutes that could be 10 or 20 times closer. Imagine the reduction in
c02 if people were traveling 20 times fewer miles every day.

~~~
WorldMaker
Which was some of the thinking behind the classic attempts at "company towns".
On the one hand, yes reducing commutes is a public good, but directly or
indirectly connecting your housing to the company you work for has it's own
problems (including just the basic problem that your whole life shouldn't have
to revolve around where you work). As with most things, you have to be careful
what you incentivize.

~~~
helen___keller
"company town" is a small town phenomenon. Superstar metros are the ones that
need regulation that promotes building of housing units.

~~~
WorldMaker
Just because we most associate the "company town" era most with (relatively)
small towns (and that wasn't always true, both Detroit and Chicago, as two
wildly different examples, have been accused of being company towns in
different ways and at different times), doesn't mean it isn't an applicable
comparison even to "superstar metros".

The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it
did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing
around a city's infrastructure rather than work with it, stratifying public
transit services in complicated ways that caused a lot of real grief for non-
Google employees, just as non-employees in many a company town would have had
mobility issues.

~~~
magduf
>The "Google bus" issue in SF certainly didn't make SF a company town, but it
did raise the specter of how willing a large enough company can be to routing
around a city's infrastructure rather than work with it,

What exactly are they supposed to do? Stage a violent revolt of the local
government? They're a big company with a lot of money, but that doesn't give
them control over the local politics, so there's only so much they can do
about the transit situation. Public transit in America is notoriously
horrible, and no single corporation could possibly fix it, so it makes perfect
sense for them to hire some buses to help their employees commute faster.
They're helping keep many, many cars off the road by putting people into
buses, and yeah, it's unfortunate that non-Googlers can't use the buses, but
if people want better public transit, then they should start voting for local
politicians who will improve public transit. People don't want to do that just
about anywhere in America, so this is what we get.

~~~
WorldMaker
As one easy counter example, Microsoft spends a lot of money directly into
King County transit options (and has done so regularly for a long term
relationship), and "money talks" to politicians. It's a lot easier for
politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't have to fight so much for
how to pay for it.

(That has its own issues in the entangling of corporate and political
interests, of course, as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is
involved.)

~~~
magduf
>It's a lot easier for politicians to be "pro-public transit" if they don't
have to fight so much for how to pay for it.

They don't have to "fight" to pay for it, they just need to use tax money to
do so. The problem is that voters don't want that. Voters are perfectly happy
to _massively_ subsidize infrastructure for cars (those roads aren't free),
but they don't want to subsidize public transit, and claim that public transit
should somehow survive on its own (even though roads don't).

>as there are no perfect solutions when capitalism is involved.

There's nothing "capitalistic" or "free market" when it comes to the road
system in this country. It's purely socialism. Charge use-based tolls for
every road driven on and things will change quickly.

------
joeax
I've been working remote for 8 years and so my commute is 0 mins. But in my
experience companies that allow remote work have caught on to this commute
time==money dynamic and have adjusted their offered compensation accordingly.
More than once have I had or heard the conversation that "well, you have the
perk of no commute + living in a lower cost area, so based on that the
compensation target for you is X - Y", where Y is $10-20k less.

The question I wrestle with: is it fair?

1\. For living in a lower cost area, no. If I live in SF I benefit/pay a
premium for living in a nicer area. That should have nothing to do with
compensation (unless they are located in SF and need me close by).

2\. For not having a commute, maybe. I think it is fair for a company to pay a
premium to have someone onsite. But that premium should be the same whether I
walk 5 mins to work or drive 50 miles.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
I think it's a mistake to frame this with respect to 'fairness'.

If you were another company instead of an individual you would not be having
this discussion with your employer.

Would they try to bring the price of IT equipment down, with the argument of a
shorter delivery route, if they were doing business with a retail business
close by their office?

For HR the best outcome is to get the best people possible for the lowest
price possible.

The best outcome for you as an employee is to get the maximum compensation +
benefits + bonuses for the least amount of your time/effort.

For the archetype factory employee, their value grows linearly with time spent
working. For a knowledge worker the output of a small team of 10/20 people
could generate orders of magnitude more, the time spent is not relevant what
matters is the value adding output.

So if you want to think in terms of fairness don't frame it in terms of the 40
hours a week, frame it in terms of the profit generated or money saved as a
direct result of your output.

~~~
BeetleB
> frame it in terms of the profit generated or money saved as a direct result
> of your output.

As I pointed out here[1] this is hard to do and no company does this. If you
_can_ find a way to quantify your value to the company, that's great. 90+% of
the cases I've seen where people do it, they're making wild assumptions that
no employer would buy, though.

> Would they try to bring the price of IT equipment down, with the argument of
> a shorter delivery route, if they were doing business with a retail business
> close by their office?

No, but they would bring the price down if they could buy it cheaper from a
competitor. If you live in a low COL area, they could try to argue that they
can find other employees in your area for whom they could pay less than what
you demand, and those people would still get paid more than the average in
that area.

There's a reason outsourced employees in other countries don't get paid as
much as they do in the US. Do not expect that you can change that dynamic
easily.

Of course, if you can demonstrate that it'll be hard for them to find a remote
worker with your (perhaps rare) skills, then your argument would be more
appealing to them.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21685035](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21685035)

------
Apoa
I live in NYC so perhaps I can give some perspective on why we put up with
this. My commute is ~40 minutes from Brooklyn central, and relatively
painfree. I work in Midtown. A lot of my friends commute 1 - 2 hours from
South Brooklyn, and one co-worker is commuting from outside of Queens(!).

A lot of jobs that pay decently aren't located in the outer boroughs. We could
move closer to the city but we simply don't make enough and/or don't have the
skills to make enough. Rents, especially near train stops are reaching 2 - 3k
easily. Also, many jobs are still on the fence about letting more staff work
remotely, although tech is changing this. Thus, we put up with crowds, delays
and smelly train cars.

I hope this brings a bit more light into things.

~~~
grvdrm
I also live in NYC (Manhattan, specifically), and I read through this with my
own lens: married, with a kid, another on the way. I live 13 blocks from my
office.

Some things that cause me grief: 1\. NYC's city income tax on top of federal
and state tax 2\. The competitive public school system that disadvantages many
and doesn't appeal to my parental administration efforts either 3\. The pay-
or-wait-for everything kid-related -- 2s or 3s programs that ask for
astronomical amounts of money 4\. Swampy summer urban heat island 5\. AIR
quality that probably isn't as good as it could be. If you ever walk on
Madison Ave. during morning or evening rush hour, you've inhaled the avenue-
wide plume of diesel smoke that saturates the air

In some suburbs things flip in the other direction: 1\. Public schools that
are supported by high property taxes 2\. Rather large fees for relatively
shorter commutes --hundreds of dollars per month to commute 40 minutes to/from
Grand Central or Penn 3\. Lower income tax burden

I'm looking at houses in the suburbs now, and what's difficult to quantify is
the level of happiness associated with gaining things like fresh air, extra
space, a yard for kids to play and keep themselves busy, closer proximity to
family (both sides), and etc.

I think there's lots of folks who positively and negatively value similar
things and happily eat the commute time up (as me time, or personal time) in
exchange for the some of the benefits I mentioned.

------
bluGill
It has been noted that most people consider a commute about 30 minutes or
least each way every day normal. Transport mode doesn't matter: primitive
villages walk that long to their various fields or whatever. As we add faster
modes of transport people move farther out to maintain that time.

~~~
magduf
>As we add faster modes of transport people move farther out to maintain that
time.

Exactly, which is why widening highways to alleviate congestion is a waste of
time and money. More people will just move farther out, canceling out all the
savings had by adding the extra lanes.

~~~
joncrane
Let's do a thought experiment. Today, Highway A that links suburban region A
to city B has 2 lanes and there are Y number of people that can make a certain
commute in a certain amount of time.

We widen it to 4 lanes. We get 7-10 years of reduced congestion that steadily
gets worse until we are at the same level of congestion.

Casting aside that temporary reprieve, which in itself adds value, the
carrying capacity even at current levels of congestion has doubled, do we've
now opened up another Y number of people with the option to make that commute.

So when it's all said and done, the number of people that can make that
commute has doubled, even if the time it takes remains the same.

Still a win in terms of opening up options and mobility. More trucks can make
deliveries. More people can commute to work.

~~~
zip1234
The temporary reprieve's value is probably a minute or two each direction
saved tops. The cost for that is also not paid for by the people using it.

~~~
joncrane
>The temporary reprieve's value is probably a minute or two each direction
saved tops.

Do you have a source for that? How could you possibly know without knowing
current distance and average speed?

------
jly
The transportation mode is critical for a commute. The time spent commuting
can be mitigated somewhat if you are active in the process.

As an example, I live relatively close to my office in the suburbs, and most
days I walk ~50 minutes each way for my commute. I could drive it in 10-15,
but my family has reduced from 2 to 1 cars this way (owning a car is expensive
and a massive headache). I also spend far less time at the gym because I walk
many miles per day just commuting, plus I feel fresher when I get to work. I
can definitely say I am much more satisfied with this arrangement than if I
was driving for the same duration. The major negative is less time at home
with the family, which I admit is a challenge but one I've been willing to put
up with for the other advantages.

------
davidwitt415
I wonder how the equation would change if flex/remote options were available,
eg. telecommuting 1-2 days/week. Imo the 5 days a week commuting grind is much
more debilitating that 3-4 times a week.

Going meta, the inertial insistence on 'butts in the seat 5 days a week' needs
to be disrupted. I know there are more startups and young companies these days
that understand flex and telecommuting, however, this needs to flow into the
large mass of old school companies somehow.

------
wufufufu
Didn't fully understand the statistical analyses tables in the paper because
college statistics was a long time ago, but to me it seems like other
variables had way more effect on life satisfaction than commuting time. To me
those charts imply that having a partner (or being married) and having an
education improve your satisfaction way more than adding subtracting 60
minutes to your commute.

If we're able to weight correlations of different life parameters with life
satisfaction, where is the "how cost-effectively to maximize your satisfaction
according to statistics" guide?

All my coworkers commute 40+ minutes to have a larger house for their family
and a slower pace of life than in the city.

This seems like pretty biased against commuting. Is it because everyone here
is salty about having to commute to SF or Silicon Valley because rent is
prohibitively expensive?

------
oftenwrong
Abstract:

>People spend a lot of time commuting and often find it a burden. According to
economics, the burden of commuting is chosen when compensated either on the
labor or on the housing market so that individuals’ utility is equalized.
However, in a direct test of this strong notion of equilibrium, we find that
people with longer commuting time report systematically lower subjective well-
being. Additional empirical analyses do not find institutional explanations of
the empirical results that commuters systematically incur losses. We discuss
several possibilities of an extended model of human behavior able to explain
this ‘commuting paradox’.

------
EADGBE
I suppose my mindset could change later; but I live a rather hectic and noisy
life with small children (as I'm sure a lot can relate).

Having a 40 minute commute entirely to myself to listen to anything I want to
(or silence) is almost a sanity check for me.

------
VladimirIvanov
I'm definitely in no commute camp. My office is less than a 5 minute walk away
from my apartment. It's literally a distance of two blocks. I'm in apartment
right now for lunch cooking myself a meal.

------
obruchez
Another data point: I know somebody who has a long commute (at least 2 hours a
day), but commute by train and is allowed by his employer to work during his
commute. He also works from home one day per week. Which sounds like an
excellent compromise: he's not socially isolated by remote working; his
commute time is included in his working hours; he can afford a nice home in a
less expensive place.

------
anotheryou
Just the number of minutes is a very coarse measure.

Important for me are seating and no changes in public transport and by bike
the route is important.

------
m3kw9
Looks like once air taxi or commutes proliferates, down town residential house
prices will plummet

------
olliej
I just returned to a two hour commute instead of a 20 minute commute because
of stress induced by the 20 minute commute job.

Is it ideal? No, is it worth it? Yes.

------
bullen
It's not a paradox, they aren't paying the full price for energy. Soon they
will!

------
findmyway
Not all commutes are equal. Self driving will change many aspects. You will be
able to do recreational stuff while in the car.

~~~
michaelgrosner2
That is absolutely wrong. I take a train for ~50mins and walk ~10mins. I used
to just do the ~10min walk. Work/Life was so much better when I just did the
walk. Sure I can read and listen to podcasts and play phone games, but what
I'd really like to be doing is be with my wife and son, or really just not in
transit.

~~~
Grangar
I'll offer a contrast. For me 10 minutes wasn't enough because it made me feel
like I lived at work. Now that I travel 45 mins the increased physical
distance results in mental distance as well and feels incredibly liberating.

