Plenary session 5

1. 1 Session orgnization by Joachim Merz and Paul Schreyer
Time Use and Well-Being – Plenary Session 5
Time Use and Well-Being
Plenary Session 5
Organizer: Joachim Merz (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany)
Paul Schreyer (OECD, Paris, France)

2. 2 Session orgnization by Joachim Merz and Paul Schreyer
Time Use and Well-Being – Plenary Session 5
1 Time Use and Well-Being – General Importance
“Today is the first day of the rest of your life”
Time matters
Time enables and restricts any activity, work, leisure, child care … whatever
Time is the encompassing indicator of any living activity
Time allocation has important economic implications
The various uses of time affect individual and societal well-being:
- paid and unpaid work, gender and women’s contribution to society
- voluntary work, leisure, social participation, investment in human capital
- individual and family work life balance
- social participation
- …

3. 3 Session orgnization by Joachim Merz and Paul Schreyer
Time Use and Well-Being – Plenary Session 5
2 Time Use and Well-Being – Progress in Measuring
SNA: Satellite accounts, Extended SNAs of unrecorded work, NTA
Time use diaries: Daily time use activity information about
when, how long, with whom and where
Time Use Diary Surveys: Expanding worldwide (MTUS, Oxford University)
Time Use Diary Surveys’ new approaches for well-being measuring:
- activity and time specific satisfaction (France, Germany),
- metaphors of time as: resources; environments/context; body, and horizon (Germany)
“A minute might last an hour, an hour might elapse in a second” (Momo)
Time stress and time squeeze at work and leisure (The harried leisure class)
Counter movements: Slow down (Slow food), deceleration; consequences:
less consumption, preservation of resources and supporting sustainability

4. 4 Session orgnization by Joachim Merz and Paul Schreyer
Time Use and Well-Being – Plenary Session 5
3 Time Use and Well-Being – Policy Impacts
Time is the key concept for the debate on well-being and progress,
both in individual and societal (The Great Day) perspectives
Stiglitz-Commission: Beyond GDP, subjective well-being, time use importance
Time use and well-being and policy importance and impacts:
- Labour market flexibilities and working time arrangements
- Public care service; public kindergarden
- Time policies in the public area (synchronization);
Time policy association: e.g. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Zeitpolitik
- New welfare regimes and policies: more or less familiarized regimes
(Esping Anderson)
- …

5. 5 Session orgnization by Joachim Merz and Paul Schreyer
Time Use and Well-Being – Plenary Session 5
1. The Time-use Survey of Rural Punjab: Measuring the Unmeasured
Danhoa Harpreet (Punjabi University, India) and Uppal Anupama (Punjabi University, India)
Discussant: Patricia Ruggles
2. Accounting for Total Work
Andrea Brandolini (Bank of Italy) and Eliana Viviano (Bank of Italy)
Discussant: Conchita d’Ambrosia
3. Unpaid Household Work in Latin America: Unfolding Patterns and Determinants
Veronica Amarante (ECLAC) and Cecilia Rossel (ECLAC)
Discussant: Stephan Klasen
4. Measuring Uses and Perceptions of Time – A Case for Well-being
Susana Garcia Diez (Federal Statistical Office of Germany) and Matxalen Legarreta (University of the
Basque Country, Spain) “”
Discussant: Andrea Brandolini
5. Polarization of Time and Income – A Multidimensional Approach with Well-being Gap and
Minimum 2DGAP: German Evidence
Joachim Merz (Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany) and Bettina Scherg (Leuphana
University Lüneburg, Germany)
Discussant: Lars Osberg
6. Welfare Participation and Time Use in China
Qin Gao (Fordham University, USA, USA), Shivou Wu (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
USA) and Fuhua Zhai (Fordham University, USA) “”
Discussant: Alice Nakamura

6. 6 Session orgnization by Joachim Merz and Paul Schreyer
Time Use and Well-Being – Plenary Session 5
RNTU Time Use Bibliography
Time use literature; ongoing extended, including Prof. Andrew Harvey’s data base, TURP Canada
RNTU Time Use Research Safe
Researcher, subjects, data bases, methods, results, references, available literature, advice and
suggestions.
RNTU Time Use Information Pool
Time use related journals, institutions and databases and their access.
RNTU Time Use Event Calendar
Time use connected conferences, workshops, summer schools and related events.
RNTU Time Use Forum
Improve communication and creates a global network of in time use interested people: realized
as a group at the social network www.XING.com.
Credits, Development and Hosting:
Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe, FFB, www.leuphana.de/ffb)
(Prof. Dr. Joachim Merz and FFB colleagues; Kristina Kaske, Jörn Allmers design and
software; many thanks to Kimberly Fisher for additional literature).
Your input and feedback are encouraged to further improve RNTU: info@rntu.org .

7. 7 Session orgnization by Joachim Merz and Paul Schreyer
Time Use and Well-Being – Plenary Session 5
electronic International Journal of Time Use Research (eIJTUR):
www.eIJTUR.org
Editors: Joachim Merz (& Managing Editor)
Jonathan Gershuny
Andrew S. Harvey