Commute Time, Happiness, and Job Satisfaction


Arianna Flores, Heidi Olivares, Matthew Davis 1

1 University of Redlands

Introduction

This project examines how commute time relates to two major indicators of well-being: happiness and job satisfaction.

Commuting affects millions of workers, and existing research suggests it has meaningful consequences for physical health, stress levels, and overall quality of life.

We selected this topic because each researcher on our team has personal experience with commuting—whether to school or to work—which led us to wonder how much commute time actually influences happiness.

Background literature

Academic research provides strong evidence that commuting affects well‐being:

  • Stutzer & Frey (2008) show that longer commutes decrease life satisfaction—a phenomenon known as the commuting paradox.

  • Koslowsky et al. (1995) documents the psychological stress caused by commuting and its connection to lower job satisfaction.

  • Gottholmseder et al. (2009) finds that commute length increases perceived stress.

Popular press sources reinforce these concerns:

  • The Washington Post (2016) reports that long commutes are linked to obesity, back pain, stress, depression, and wasted time.

  • Forbes (2023) explains that long and costly commutes are a major reason workers avoid returning to the office after COVID.

  • The Economic Times (2025) identifies long commutes as a top deal-breaker for American workers.

Together, these sources show commuting influences both personal well-being and broader labor-market behavior.

Data and methodology

Our data comes from the General Social Survey (GSS), conducted annually since 1972 by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC).

We focus on the 1986 survey (since there were no other years with sustainable data in the GSS and we couldn’t find other data sets that worked well enough) and examine the following variables:

  • Commute time (numeric)

  • Happiness (categorical, ordered)

  • Job satisfaction (categorical, ordered)

  • Sex (categorical)

  • Age (numeric)

  • Income (converted to numeric)

Link: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/variables/11/vshow

First, we describe our variables of commute time and well-being variables. Next, we visualize the relationships between commute time and happiness; and then commute time and job satisfaction.

Results

Distribution of Commute Time

Commute Time and Happiness

Summary Statistics

Table 1: Summary Statistics
Variable N Mean Std. Dev. Min Pctl. 25 Pctl. 75 Max
commute_num 1330 20 17 0 10 30 97
age_num 1458 45 18 18 30 60 87
income_num 1346 19102 8959 500 12500 27500 27500

Summary for Categorical Variables

Table 2: Summary Statistics: Categorical Variables
Variable N Percent
sex 1470
… FEMALE 849 58%
… MALE 621 42%

Discussion

Our initial findings support the idea that longer commute times are associated with lower happiness and reduced job satisfaction. Longer commute times may cause reduced personal time, stress, and a limit to a work-life balance. These results align with our academic and popular press sources on our initial guesses on what commute times would cause. The results are in line with what we expected since we have experienced these problems that come with commuting as well.

References

  • Stutzer, A., & Frey, B. S. (2008). Stress that doesn’t pay: The commuting paradox. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 110(2), 339-366.
  • Koslowsky, M., Kluger, A. N., & Reich, M. (1995). Commuting stress: Causes, effects, and methods of coping. Springer.
  • Gottholmseder, G., Nowotny, K., Pruckner, G. J., & Theurl, E. (2009). Stress perception and commuting. Health Economics, 18(5), 559-576.
  • The Washington Post (2016). The astonishing human potential wasted on commutes.
  • Forbes (2023). Long and costly commutes are a big reason workers don’t want to return to the office.
  • The Economic Times (2025). Long commute or no remote work – What Americans don’t like about jobs.

Longer commute times are associated with lower happiness and job satisfaction.