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Child-induced fatigue costs economy dear, says new study
14 November 2017
Parents with young children are ‘substantially’ less productive than their colleagues, due to a lack of sleep As every parent of a newborn knows, sleep is a foreign country, a place that they happily visited a long time ago but fear they may now never experience again. The constant disruption to sleep patterns posed by a screaming baby can play havoc with relationships, waistlines and sanity, but it’s also having a deleterious effect on the nation’s finances. Until now. In the first study of its kind, Joan Costa-i-Font and Sarah Flèche, of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics and Political Science , have found that baby-induced fatigue is significantly undermining economic performance. Their work is to be presented at the Royal Economic Society’s annual conference in April.