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The effects of sleep on productivity in low-income countries

Home > News > The effects of sleep on productivity in low-income countries
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Sleep is one of the basic needs for a human being that is not guaranteed in poverty, on par with access to food, water, education and health care.

Sleep is one of the basic needs for a human being that is not guaranteed in poverty, on par with access to food, water, education and health care.

The sleep of the poorest urban dwellers in developing countries is often characterized by numerous awakenings and short duration. Sleep efficiency (i.e., the ratio of sleep duration to time spent in bed) can reach very low values, comparable to that of a patient with sleep apnea syndrome. Practically, it may be necessary to spend 1.4 minutes in bed to sleep 1 minute.

Given the importance of sleep in achieving a good cognitive performance, experts believe that public health interventions aimed at increasing its duration can result in improved economic indicators in low-income countries.

A study by Bessone and colleagues showed that, in a sample of Indian workers, allowing 30 minutes of sleep in the workplace can lead to both increased productivity and psychological well-being. Conversely, increasing the duration of sleep at night does not translate into increased personal and professional well-being.

The authors hypothesize that differences in sleep efficiency may explain this result. Heat, mosquitos, overcrowding, and noise may in fact be the cause of frequent awakenings during the nighttime sleep of workers in their homes, so that sleep in the workplace can reach a higher quality.

The results of the study suggest that the effectiveness of public policies aimed at increasing sleep duration in developing countries is more tied to removing factors that prevent uninterrupted, good-quality sleep than to increasing the amount of time devoted to sleep.

Placeholder autore articolo
Simone Bruno

Source: Pedro Bessone, Gautam Rao, Frank Schilbach, Heather Schofield, Mattie Toma, The Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 136, Issue 3, August 2021, Pages 1887–1941, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab013.

Link: Economic Consequences of Increasing Sleep Among the Urban Poor* | The Quarterly Journal of Economics | Oxford Academic (oup.com)