Is daylight saving time working?

Summary

The Inquiry – Is Daylight Saving Time Working?

BBC World Service
Host: Tanya Beckett
Aired: August 11, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Inquiry explores the history, science, and ongoing debate around Daylight Saving Time (DST), prompted by recent moves in the US to adopt permanent DST via the “Sunshine Protection Act.” The episode examines whether DST achieves its intended purposes, its effects on health and society, and why attitudes differ regionally and globally.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origins and Evolution of Daylight Saving Time

• Expert Witness: David Prairow (Author of "Seize the Daylight" and "Saving the Day")
  • DST was first conceptualized by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, observing how waking earlier could save candles (03:07).
  • Early 20th-century Britain proposed gradual clock shifts for more daylight, but it was rejected (03:31).
  • First implemented by Germany and Austria-Hungary during WWI to save energy, with others following suit (04:30).
  • Post-war, DST was seen as a wartime measure and largely abandoned except in Britain and some US regions (04:45).
  • WWII brought “double daylight saving” in the UK and year-round DST in the US, but postwar application remained inconsistent, creating chaos before national regulations in 1966 (06:01).
  • Previous experiments with permanent DST in the 1970s US oil crisis ended quickly due to dark mornings and unpopularity—especially concerns over children going to school in darkness (07:05).

Memorable Quote:
“It became very unpopular very quickly because it made the mornings very dark... So it lost popularity very quickly.” – David Prairow (07:05)

Notable Example:

• Chaos in the 1950s-60s: A 35-mile bus ride from Ohio to West Virginia required passengers to adjust their watches seven times due to inconsistent local DST policies (06:01).

Regional Exceptions:

• Hawaii and Arizona opt out of DST for very specific reasons: Hawaii’s equatorial stability in daylight, and Arizona wanting less daylight due to intense heat (08:32).

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2. The Biological Impact of Changing Clocks

• Expert Witness: Jennifer Evans (Health Sciences Professor, Marquette University)
  • The body’s circadian rhythms are disrupted by clock changes, creating a form of self-imposed jet lag (09:18).
  • Light is the primary signal for adjusting the body clock, affecting hormone release and alertness. Adjustment takes time, impacting all bodily systems (09:58).
  • Sudden shifts leave people groggy, out of sync, and can impact safety—traffic accidents spike after the spring clock change due to sleep deprivation (12:30).

Memorable Quote:
“There is a spike in car accidents on the days we change, especially the springtime change... Most people would never drive when they are drunk, but many of us will drive when we're sleep deprived.” – Jennifer Evans (12:30)

Morning vs. Evening Light:

• Morning light is generally better for aligning with social/work schedules, but not one solution fits all due to differing personal patterns and work types (13:37).

• Permanent DST in winter leads to very late sunrises, leading many to start their day in the dark—scientifically and historically shown to cause problems (15:01).

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3. Geography Matters: Latitude, Longitude and Social Time

• Expert Witness: Till Roenneberg (Professor of Chronobiology, Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich)
  • DST is essentially a way to make people work one hour earlier, shifting “social time,” not solar time (17:41).
  • The closer to the equator, the steadier sunrise/sunset times, making DST less tolerable and less beneficial (18:24).
  • Farther from the equator, greater seasonal daylight changes make shifting clocks more practical (18:50).
  • Within time zones, people further west have later sunrises and find DST more difficult—political pressure in the US to eliminate DST often came from these regions (20:55).

Memorable Quote:
“DST is nothing else but a work time management... You are transforming the social clock, but you're not doing anything else.” – Till Roenneberg (17:41)

• Even within the same state, time zones can differ to better match local preferences for solar time over official time (20:20).

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4. The Economic Trade-Offs of Changing or Not Changing the Clock

• Expert Witness: Juan Costefont (London School of Economics, European Commission Advisor)
  • The original rationale for DST was energy saving, but modern studies find little to no benefit—sometimes even higher energy usage (22:06).
  • Spring loss of an hour leads to prolonged negative effects on wellbeing; the autumn gain does little to offset these losses (22:40).
  • More afternoon daylight benefits leisure/tourism industries, but sleep deprivation harms vulnerable populations and increases health inequality (23:40).

Memorable Quote:
“The welfare gain from getting one hour in autumn is not compensated by the loss from losing one hour in spring.” – Juan Costefont (22:40)

• The choice between permanent DST, permanent standard time, or continued switching has ramifications for health, productivity, and economic fairness (24:11).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Highlight | |-----------|-------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:07 | David Prairow | “Wouldn’t it be better if everybody woke up earlier, closer to sunrise?” | | 07:05 | David Prairow | “It became very unpopular very quickly because it made the mornings very dark…” | | 09:18 | Jennifer Evans | “Twice a year... it’s essentially like we’re jet lagging ourselves.” | | 12:30 | Jennifer Evans | “There is a spike in car accidents on the days we change, especially the springtime change.”| | 13:37 | Jennifer Evans | “There is no one right answer, but in general, morning light is better for most people…” | | 17:41 | Till Roenneberg | “DST is nothing else but a work time management… You are transforming the social clock…” | | 22:40 | Juan Costefont | “Detrimental effects on well-being from switching the time in spring... lasts all the way to two weeks.” | | 23:40 | Juan Costefont | “Health wise, choosing one time or another has an implication on the health inequalities in the country.”|

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Important Timestamps

• [01:15] – Introduction & Context: US House votes for permanent DST.
• [03:07] – DST’s philosophical roots and historical adoption.
• [06:01] – Postwar US clock chaos; regulatory response.
• [07:05] – Previous experiments with year-round DST; public backlash.
• [09:18] – Biological impact of clock changes (“jet lagging ourselves”).
• [12:30] – Evidence of increased accidents; sleep deprivation risks.
• [13:37] – Debate over best timing for morning vs. evening light.
• [17:41] – Social vs. solar time; why DST is more than just “the clock.”
• [22:06] – Energy saving myth busting; DST’s original intent vs. modern reality.
• [22:40] – Net negatives from clock changes on worker wellbeing.
• [23:40] – Health inequalities and who benefits/loses from DST arrangements.

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Conclusion

The move to end or establish permanent Daylight Saving Time in the US is part of a long global debate over whether the shifting of clocks benefits society. Modern research casts doubt on its energy-saving rationale and highlights negative impacts on health, especially sleep and vulnerable populations, while also noting social and economic trade-offs. Geography greatly influences public opinion and practical effects, showing there’s no universal answer—whether DST “works” depends in large part on where, and how, you live.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Tanya Beckett]

Welcome to the inquiry from the BBC World Service with me Tanya Beckett. One question from four expert witnesses and an answer On 14 July 2026, the US House of Representatives voted to make daylight Saving Time permanent in the United States. The so called Sunshine Protection act would eliminate the practice of shifting the clocks one hour each way. America would be on permanent summertime all year round, meaning that the current eight month period of summer daylight saving would also extend to cover the four winter months. This means the US would join other parts of the world in not springing forward an hour in the spring and falling back an hour in the autumn, otherwise known as the fall. President Trump is behind the move, arguing that shifting the clocks twice a year is an unnecessary hassle for the the public and disrupts business.

[Jennifer Evans]

Let's get rid of daylight saving time stuff, okay?

[David Prairow]

We have a bill in, hopefully the Senate's going to approve that one.

[Tanya Beckett]

The House There have been multiple attempts by the US to remove the twice yearly clock changes, but it's never worked out. This week on the inquiry we're asking Is Daylight Saving time working?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Part 1 Lock the clock Our first

[Tanya Beckett]

expert witness is David Prairow, author of Seize the Daylight and Saving the Day. David says the idea to move the clocks was first conceived in 1784 by one of America's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was stationed in Paris as a diplomat at the time, often working past midnight and sleeping late.

[David Prairow]

And one day he woke up early and he saw the light shining in his window at 8am and he said, I've been sleeping through all this daylight that's lighting my house for free. And then at night I have to use expensive candles to light my house. So wouldn't it be better if everybody woke up earlier, closer to sunrise? And that's sort of the basic idea of Daylight Saving Time.

[Tanya Beckett]

Franklin's idea that the workday could be shifted earlier remained just that, an idea until over 100 years later. A campaign spearheaded in the UK by a prominent British Edwardian builder suggested moving the clocks forward by 20 minutes on four consecutive Sundays in April and then reversing the process in September, a total shift of 80 minutes again to take advantage of early daylight. The idea was rejected owing to opposition, including from farmers. But frankly, one can imagine that it must have sounded pretty complicated and unappealing to a lot of people. Then, during the First World War, Germany and Austria, Hungary first introduced the practice of putting the clocks forward in summer to save fuel and energy. The Allied Powers and several neutral European countries soon followed. Was it perceived as a success?

[David Prairow]

Yes. During World War I, it was found that it did save energy, which was the main use of doing it during the war, to save energy for the however, when the war ended, many countries felt it was a wartime measure and got rid of it.

[Tanya Beckett]

Britain, however, kept the move in place, as did some American cities and states. And when World War II came along, the idea returned. Britain, having never stopped switching the clocks in the summer between the wars, now went one step further.

[David Prairow]

The British actually put in double Daylight Saving Time in their summer, two hours in advance. He saved even more energy. And when America got involved with World War II after the Pearl harbor attack, one month after that, America put in year on Daylight Saving Time for the wartime effort, just as they did in World War I.

[Tanya Beckett]

By this time, many Americans had become used to an earlier start in the summer.

[David Prairow]

Fred what happened after World War II, though in the United States was even though they got rid of the national law for Daylight Saving Time, many places around the country having tried it During World War II, they decided they liked it and they kept it. So it wound up becoming pretty popular around most of the us but it was haphazard because one city might have Daylight Saving Time and the next town might not have it, and a third town might have Daylight Saving Time, but start and end in different dates. So it was a fairly confusing time in the 1950s and 60s in the

[Tanya Beckett]

US one example of the chaos was that at one point a 35 mile bus ride that crossed the border from Ohio to neighboring West Virginia required passengers to change their watches seven times. So in 1966, the US passed a law that said any state could have Daylight Saving time or not. But if it did, it had to observe it through the whole state, not just city by city. And the start and end dates were set by the federal government. So that was the end of that. Only it wasn't. It seems that we cannot resist trying to get more of a good thing. If getting up earlier was a good idea in the summer, could people have a go at doing it all year round? Britain tried it in 1968 and then abandoned it a couple of years later. Then during the oil crisis of the 1970s, the need to save energy prompted US Congress to extend the Daylight saving time to a year round affair.

[David Prairow]

It became very unpopular very quickly because it made the mornings very dark. In many parts of the US people had to wake up in the very dark time, go to work in the pitch dark, and they specifically didn't like sending their kids to school in the dark, walking on dark city streets, or having to wait on the side of a dark rural road for bus to come and pick them up. So it lost popularity very quickly. And even though this law had been put in as a two year temporary measure for the energy crisis, Congress repealed it after one year because it became so unpopular they didn't even want to keep it for the second year.

[Tanya Beckett]

But the fascination for more moving of clocks was far from over. Laws in the subsequent decades extended the months of Daylight Saving Time, moving the spring change earlier to March and the fall change later to November. So where has this all ended up? Daylight Saving Time in the United States now lasts for 34 weeks, which is about two thirds of the year. If states want to stay on summertime for the whole year, they need federal government approval. But any state can stay on wintertime all year round without the say so from Washington. In importantly, Hawaii and Arizona have opted to do just that. And they both have very specific reasons.

[David Prairow]

Hawaii is the most southern state, the one closest to the equator. And when you get close to the equator, the sunrises and sunsets don't change very much over the years. So the benefits of Daylight Saving Time aren't as great. And in Arizona, it's just so hot in the middle of the summer, over 110 degrees Fahrenheit, that the people in Arizona say the last thing they want is an extra hour of daylight. They want the sun to go down because that's when they go outdoors.

[Tanya Beckett]

If just thinking about all this time switching is doing your head in, just imagine what it might do to your body when the clocks actually Change time for our next expert witness,

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Part two, the body clock.

[Jennifer Evans]

Twice a year, when the clocks spring forward or backwards, it's essentially like we're jet lagging ourselves. So our bodies have an inertia where they need to adjust to the new time zone. It's harder to sleep. We wake up groggy, we may not be hungry at the right time. We may have tummy issues. So, yeah, the feelings of jet lag, we basically do it to ourselves twice a year.

[Tanya Beckett]

Jennifer Evans is a professor in the College of Health Sciences at Marquette University in Wisconsin in the United States. She explains what moving to a different time does to our biology.

[Jennifer Evans]

So every single cell in our body is basically a clock set to local time. And there's a central clock in the brain that basically coordinates the system and says, hey guys, this is what time you all should be set to based on the light signals that I'm getting from the eye. So there is a really nice system for coordinating, adjusting, and synchronizing all the cells in our body. That's a beautiful system. But the problem is once you change the scenario, it takes a while for that entire system to realign to the new time zone. So our metabolic systems, our cardiovascular systems, our neural systems, they all kind of experience jet lag during that transition.

[Tanya Beckett]

Is there anything that's sort of biological that you could cite is an illustration of exactly how our bodies become discombobulated?

[Jennifer Evans]

Really good question. So our rhythms aren't set by our hormones. Instead, hormones are set by our rhythms. So there are hormones that are specifically released during the daytime that help us do what we need to do during the daytime. And then there are other hormones that are set to nighttime to help repair and recover our bodies. It gives us energy. So this actually happens within an hour of us waking up. So if you wake up before that happens, that means you won't have that energy and it'll be harder for you to wake up, feel alert, and then engage in the activities that you need to.

[Tanya Beckett]

Jennifer says the way to adjust to any time change is in small, progressive steps, starting a few days ahead of the clock moving.

[Jennifer Evans]

That might be going to bed slightly earlier, waking up slightly earlier. And the big thing is, light is the strongest signal for our brains and bodies to adjust. So this might involve waking up earlier to get more light in the morning if you're traveling east, or staying up later to get more light in the evening if you're traveling west.

[Tanya Beckett]

Do you think there is a case for saying that people might make mistakes like crossing roads when they shouldn't or driving a car in a way that they shouldn't if they're. If they're jet lagged.

[Jennifer Evans]

Exactly. Tanya, you really hit the nail on the head there. There is a spike in car accidents on the days we change, especially the springtime change when we spring forward. That's actually the hardest direction for people to shift to. And so on the day of the time change in the spring, there's usually an increased rate of car accidents because we're not biologically well suited to be engaging in those activities. Most people would never drive when they are drunk, but many of us will drive when we're sleep deprived. And the biological consequences of sleep deprivation have been scientifically shown to be very similar to driving under the influence.

[Tanya Beckett]

The US Is attempting to pass a law that will see the elimination of these clock changes joining other countries around the world, like China, Russia and Brazil. But deciding which time to permanently settle on is also up for debate. When is it best for us to have light at which end of the day?

[Jennifer Evans]

Unfortunately, there's not a simple answer to that question, because what time of day it's best to get light oftentimes is determined by what you need to do and your social and work schedule. So if you have to wake up and be at work at 7am it would be better for you to get light in the morning so that way you can wake up and be refreshed, get to work and be cognitively alert. But if you're a musician or a bartender or you work third shift or something like that, evening light is going to actually shift you in the direction that's going to be better aligned with your social and work schedule. So there is no one right answer. But in general, morning light is better for most people because we have a tendency of wanting to be more night owlish. And the morning light will correct that and adjust our bodies to align with the typical work schedule.

[Tanya Beckett]

Jennifer says that she's against staying on summertime during the darker months, as President Trump is suggesting, as opposed to reverting in the winter, as America currently does, to what is called standard time. And as we've heard, there have already been experiments with staying on daylight saving time, which have been abandoned. And the reason is simple.

[Jennifer Evans]

Then in the middle of winter where I live in Milwaukee, the sun doesn't rise until until 8:30 in standard time and that could change to be much later. So we're basically getting up, going about our business in the middle of the night when it's harder to see we're sleepier and that's what's actually caused some of the problems in the past with trying to adopt permanent savings times.

[Tanya Beckett]

We've talked about moving clocks to shift and hours of daylight to better match the working day. But what about the parts of the world that have plenty of daylight hours? How do they Consider the question.

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[Tanya Beckett]

You're listening to the Inquiry from the BBC World Service. It's almost time for Part three, but before we start, I just wanted to let you know there's a huge archive of previous episodes available to listen to, including Is Indigenous Education at Risk? And Can We Live With Extreme Heat? Just search for the Inquiry wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please click subscribe and turn on push notifications so you never miss a thing.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Part three A Bit of Latitude

[Tanya Beckett]

Till Ronenberg is a professor of Chronobiology at the Institute of Medical Psychology at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, Germany. He explains what, in effect, Daylight Saving Time actually means for society.

[Till Roenneberg]

DST is nothing else but a work time management. And the work time management says we go to work an hour earlier. That's what DST is. Nothing else. And in order for people to not notice that they switch the clocks, but it's nothing else but the decision to go to work an hour earlier. You are transforming the social clock, but you're not doing anything else.

[Tanya Beckett]

We mentioned in Part one that Hawaii does not observe Daylight Saving Time, meaning the clocks do not move forward in the Spring and backward in the winter instead. America's southernmost state stays on standard or wintertime all year long. And the reason is quite simple.

[Till Roenneberg]

The closer you are to the equator, the less likely it is that you tolerate DST because you have a relatively constant 12 hour photoperiod, meaning 12 hour light and 12 hour dark. And you notice that you are going to work an hour earlier throughout the entire DST period because it's still going to be dark.

[Tanya Beckett]

Right? And the converse is also true.

[Till Roenneberg]

If you live further away from the equator, towards the South Pole or the North Pole, your photoperiod is lengthening over the course of the year. So you can tolerate going to work an hour earlier because sunrise is also earlier, not immediately. In March, you still have to go to work in darkness when they switch the clocks. But over time the sun rises earlier and earlier and earlier and then you will not be suffer from going to work in the dark.

[Tanya Beckett]

So that's north and south. Then there is the question of east and west. As you travel east or west around the world, the local time changes. And to keep track of those differences, the world is divided into time zones. A time zone is simply a region that shares the same time. Daylight saving time is just something some places do with their clocks, shifting their time either forwards or backwards. The important thing is that these are two different ideas. A place doesn't enter a new time zone when it switches to daylight saving time. It simply changes its clocks. As a result, the time difference between two places can change from summer to winter, even though both places remain in the same time zones. Which is a bit of a digression, but it does help illustrate how deeply confusing this can get. But even if you're sitting in a single time zone and not moving, simple geography means that what the clock says doesn't necessarily suit everyone.

[Till Roenneberg]

If you look from the east to the west in the time zone, people go to sleep and wake up four minutes later for every longitude. Which means they really look at the sun for their time. If you look at Florida, the panhandle reaches out further to the west than the rest of the state. And and they decided within the same state to have two different time zones to give people the chance to live more according to the sun than according to social time.

[Tanya Beckett]

This seems like a rather sensible thing to do. The problem is it's often not citizens who get to make the rules.

[Till Roenneberg]

The decision in the US to get rid of daylight saving time came from local politicians who represented the western parts of the time zone which suffer most because they are already late in relationship to the social time because they're at the west end of the times and where the sun rises later in the east. And if they now have to switch to work in a town zone further east, because that's what DST does, they suffer most. And these people said we can't do it, we don't want to do it, our children are going to school practically always in the dark and so forth. And that's why the politicians made pressure and they got rid of it again.

[Tanya Beckett]

So we've spent the last 10 minutes and notice I'm trying to keep a very close eye on the time, talking mainly about the social consequences of moving the clocks. But what are the economic considerations?

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Part 4 the time trade OFF

[Tanya Beckett]

Juan Costefont is professor at the London School of Economics and he's talking to us from Spain. Juan has advised the European Commission on seasonal clock changes and he reminds us where this all started.

[Juan Costefont]

Originally, the time change had a lot to do with energy, with energy saving and it probably made sense back in time. But these days the way we use energy is very different and if anything the time change, it shows either no effect or even an increase in energy consumption. So it is counterproductive on that front.

[Tanya Beckett]

What time of day do we need light in order to benefit the economy as a whole? Well, we know the big challenge is making sure we get enough sleep and are alert. So in that sense there's a cost to moving the clocks at all, irrespective of whether it's backwards or forwards.

[Juan Costefont]

So what we observe is that detrimental effects on well, being from switching the time in spring where we lose one hour of sleep that lasts all the way to two weeks. When one looks at the effect in autumn where we gain one hour of sleep, actually individuals only sleep a small proportion of that hour. And that essentially means that the welfare gain from getting one hour in autumn is not compensated by the loss from losing one hour in spring.

[Tanya Beckett]

So that's the worker productivity side of things. But what about how we spend money in our spare time?

[Juan Costefont]

It's true that by allowing ourselves more light in the afternoon over summer, then we enjoy more leisure related activities. Exposure to light in the afternoon would benefit those businesses that depend very much on leisure. Think of golf clubs or restaurants, any country that makes a significant income out of tourism, they would probably benefit from having more light in the afternoon.

[Tanya Beckett]

And there is something else we've not yet thought about.

[Juan Costefont]

Sleep deprivation generally affects more vulnerable populations. So older people, children, people with chronic conditions are far more affected. Whilst the benefits from let's say, setting the time in the, say day, life saving time, so having more time in the afternoon typically are ripped by healthier people, stronger people, you could argue health wise. Essentially, choosing one time or another has an implication on the health inequalities in the country and ultimately how much we prioritize health with respect to other goods.

[Tanya Beckett]

Now we return to our Is Daylight Saving Time working? Moving clocks forward in the spring and back again in the autumn is common across Europe and North America, meaning hundreds of millions of people still make the switch each year. But countries that do not observe Daylight Saving Time make up a majority of the world, so the biannual clock change is far from a universal practice. Despite the fact that changing the time messes with our bodies and often our minds, we are strangely drawn to fiddling with the hands on the clock. But as the United States States considers joining the countries that no longer change their clocks twice a year, it's clear that the effectiveness of Daylight Saving Time depends largely on where you are in the world. You've been listening to the Inquiry from the BBC World Service. Before we go, I just wanted to let you know there's a huge archive of previous episodes available to listen to, including Is Indigenous Education at Risk? And Is Technology Ruining Sport? Just search for the inquiry wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, please click subscribe and turn on push notifications so you never miss a thing. This edition was presented by me. Tanya Beckett the producer was Matt Toalson, the researcher Eva Yabsley the editor Tom Bigwood the technical producer was Cameron Ward. A moment in time captured by what they heard.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

I heard some people making phone calls.

[David Prairow]

Okay, which Runway would you like at Te Bar?

[Juan Costefont]

We're going to begin the Hudson.

[David Prairow]

What they saw I put my head down. I saw the movie of my life

[Narrator/Advertiser]

started going through my head.

[Tanya Beckett]

What they smelt.

[Till Roenneberg]

I still remember the smell of the

[Tanya Beckett]

fresh fish and I completely lost my appetite. Moments captured which last for a lifetime.

[Till Roenneberg]

Scientists have made the atomic bomb that

[Jennifer Evans]

sort of flash set on fire the

[Till Roenneberg]

birds and they all fell down without their feathers on the way was clear for Hitler to realize all his demonic plans.

[Tanya Beckett]

Stories from people with first hand accounts of events that have shaped our world. At the end, two called me into

[Narrator/Advertiser]

his office and he said, you did a good job. I left the office with tears in my eyes.

[Jennifer Evans]

She called me and told me I'm doing Studio 54. She had already become a star in Paris. She came back a superstar.

[Tanya Beckett]

Listen now, search for witness history wherever you get your BBC Podcasts

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