Crying babies can cut parents’ income

SLEEP DEPRIVATION

LONDON • Sleep deprivation experienced by parents when a newborn arrives not only frazzles their nerves, but can also harm their bank account, a new study suggests.

Just one hour less sleep each night can reduce household income by up to 11 per cent, researchers from the London School of Economics found.

Dr. Joan Costa-i-Font, associate professor of political economy at LSE, said lack of sleep led to fatigue, which could “undermine economic performance.”

He presented the research at the Royal Society of Economics’ annual conference in Bristol, U.K., Wednesday, saying: “Sleep is often overlooked in economics models despite its obvious restorative effects on human health.

“Having children reduces productivity and I think parents and government should factor this in, and hence they need to be compensated.

“Lower income people are more strained by time and income. So they would be impacted the most.”

To find out the impact of sleep deprivation caused by crying babies, researchers looked at data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, which has been running since the 1990s and involves more than 14,000 families.

It contains records of parental sleep and how much a child wakes up during the night, as well as employment status, the number of hours worked, job satisfaction and household income.

The study found a strong relationship between the number of times a child woke up in the night and income over time.

As parents achieved less sleep at night, their incomes plummeted.

The report’s co-author, Sarah Fleche, said: “Fathers are somewhat less affected by child sleep problems. Low-skilled mothers instead experience a large decrease in employment and the number of hours worked when facing sleep deprivation.”

The authors also pointed out that most people were also sleeping less on average, and so the population as a whole may suffer the economic impact of sleep deprivation.

A recent study estimated the impact of lack of sleep on productivity and health of the British workforce cost businesses up to 40 billion pounds ($66.5 billion) each year, nearly two per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Researchers from the nonprofit research organization RAND Europe calculated that if those who slept for less than six hours a night increased their sleep to between six and seven hours a night, it could add 24 billion pounds ($40 billion) to the U.K. economy.

A poll of 2,000 adults published last year by the Royal Society for Public Health found that people in the U.K. slept an average of 6.8 hours a night.