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Comments on:Time and Money - Substitutes in real terms and complements in satisfactions Jens Bonke, Mette Deding, Mette Lausten
Lars OsbergDalhousie UniversityLevy Institute – October 29, 2005
Basic Issue individuals are either satisfied or
dissatisfied with both income & leisure
contra-intuitive ?? “if a person has lots of money relative
to leisure, … should be relatively more satisfied with money compared to leisure (and vice versa)”
Danish Time Use Survey 2001. Questionnaire data
“To our knowledge, no other analyses take the spouse’s level of leisure and housework into account.” page 6
“Satisfaction with time available for self” Key issue in “Time as a Source of Inequality Within Families:
Are Husbands more Satisfied with Time for Themselves than Wives?”
Shelley Phipps, Peter Burton and Lars Osberg Feminist Economics Volume 7(2), 2001, Pages
1-21 “Double working day” hypothesis for married
women with paid jobs Ordered probit – income & working time effects
The Lens of Theory – what difference might it make? Neo-classical
Pooled results for men & women
Split is secondary Couples aged 16-
74 Aggregate time
into “leisure” and “work”
Timing of work & period length not important
Feminist Separate estimation
–structural inequality expected
Prime working age only; 25-55
Context crucial to time use & stress
Gender roles differ Weekly hours crucial
for women
Generality or the specificity of structured inequality ? Bonke: neo-classical language of
substitution/complemenatarity main finding – complementarity of
“economic satisfaction” and “leisure satisfaction”
Alternative hypothesis – omitted “personality” variable (a.k.a. ‘set-point’) If some people are inherently “happy” (or
not), => a positive partial correlation of domain satisfaction
“leisure” Time - working hours (including
overtime and commuting) and housework Includes sleep Time period = ???
Implicitly presumes tasks can be reallocated within period – but child care not deferable
Weekly or Annual labor supply ? - Makes a big difference for women’s time crunch
Becker model of time use “Goods intensity of leisure
time” ????• Consumption on leisure activities (log average consumption per month), • Flat with outside option (dummy), • Flat with no outside option (dummy – house is the left-out category), • Summerhouse (dummy = 1, if the couple owns a second house), • Household income (log gross household income), • No savings from income (dummy = 1, if savings are impossible).
Is this “Goods Intensity of leisure” or affluence?
Peer-group effects “If then the man has a higher income
than his peer-group, he will have a lower economic satisfaction” ????? BUT – (dummy for having higher income than
the peer group income plus 2 standard deviations)
12 age/employment/urban cells for 782 males => sampling variability ??
2 age groups <45 & 45 + Misses retirement cohort
Ignores social matching literature
social intensiveness/social capital
Quite a mixed bag !!• Number of children • Youngest child 0-1 years (dummy for youngest
child being in that age-group), • Youngest child 2-6 years (dummy for youngest
child being in that age-group), • Youngest child 7-17 years (dummy for youngest
child being in that age-group - the left out category is no children in the household),
• Family evenings together (counted on a weekly basis),
• Leisure time activity (dummy =1, if the respondent attend leisure time activities regularly),
• No visits/visiting friends (Dummy = 1, indicating social isolation).
Which theoretical perspective is most useful for time use data?
Major implications for data handling and interpretation
Timing, sequencing, context, constraint & interdependence of choices All are crucial for time use but not well
handled in neo-classical economics Time allocation & gender roles are
very closely linked
Comments on:Developing Poverty indicators Using Time Use Statistics: A study in India - Indira Hirway
Lars OsbergDalhousie UniversityLevy Institute – Oct. 29, 2005
Basic Questions Are there any significant differences
between the ways in which the poor and the non poor spend their time?
What do these differences indicate about the nature of poverty?
Do we get any additional insights on poverty that can have implications for poverty reduction strategy??
Methodology
Indian time use survey - 1998-99 Cross-tabulations by state & by
Rural/urban Male/female Activity type Employment sector Non-poor/poor/(& ultra-poor)
Wages, Productivity & Poverty Market work – employer supplies capital
and materials Non-market production requires time +
own supply of tools, materials Qh = f (L, K, M)
‘the poor are overburdened by work’ – but get low wages & their non-market
labor is of low productivity WHY?
What is the binding constraint?
“poor are basically tied up to primary sector employment” degradation of natural resources is worrying
trend Why? (especially if landless)
Caste barriers to occupational choice ? Education and skills ?
Neither caste nor education discussed here Family size also not discussed
Is child care a constraint on earned income or is child labor an income source for household?
Constraints on productivity of self-employment ?
Is access to tools & materials the crucial constraint to the productivity of household production ? Credit markets & their operation
Herding labor – own cattle ?
Or is access to product / services markets unequally available ?
Or access to skills / human capital ?
Methodology of Cross-tabulation
Regression would allow consideration of multiple interactions & modelling of conditional expectations
poor/non-poor dichotomy forced by Xtabs
Depth of poverty / surplus above poverty line surely important
“households in rural areas spend considerable time …on collecting free goods from community owned common property resources” particularly for the poor 1 .. leaves limited time for them to
undertake other productive work, which can earn some income for them.
2 .. leaves them with limited energy to do other productive work. With the increasing depletion and degradation of natural resources in several parts of the country, this work is becoming increasingly time consuming and strenuous.
3… children’s employment in these activities tends to affect children’s education and health adversely
Poverty & dependence on “commons” Hugely important – many questions
Is there unequal access to commons? Rationed by informal property rights or
caste or kinship? “Tragedy of the commons” &
sustainability Is privatization a panacea ?
“Enclosure movement” & accumulation Have local elites appropriated prime lands?
Policy Implications
Gender
Household income as poverty criterion? Not clear to me how or whether intra-
household inequality in access to material resources was addressed
Social Capital & Social Exclusion
Community Work / Voluntary Services ‘much more non-poor participating’
“poor do not seem to spend any time on formal or explicit religious activities” Surprising – implications for community
status & legitimacy ? Social networks as a private asset?
Time use & micro-economics of development / poverty Hirway effectively destroys “lazy
poor” stereotype Trivial differences in small % time spent
“doing nothing” Focuses attention on low
productivity of working time of poor – both market & non-market Crucial issue – why ? What is the
binding constraint & policy implication ?