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 ?