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The Temporal Welfare State: A Cross-national Comparison

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  • James Mahmud Rice
  • Robert E. Goodin
  • Antti Parpo

Abstract

Welfare states contribute to people's well-being in many different ways. Bringing all these contributions under a common metric is tricky. Here we propose doing so through the notion of "temporal autonomy": the freedom to spend one's time as one pleases, outside the necessities of everyday life. Using surveys from five countries (the United States, Australia, Germany, France, and Sweden) that represent the principal types of welfare and gender regimes, we propose ways of operationalizing the time that is strictly necessary for people to spend in paid labor, unpaid household labor, and personal care. The time people have at their disposal after taking into account what is strictly necessary in these three arenas-which we call "discretionary time"-represents people's temporal autonomy. We measure the impact on this of government taxes, transfers, and childcare subsidies in these five countries. In so doing, we calibrate the contributions of the different welfare and gender regimes that exist in these countries, in ways that correspond to the lived reality of people's daily lives.

Suggested Citation

  • James Mahmud Rice & Robert E. Goodin & Antti Parpo, 2006. "The Temporal Welfare State: A Cross-national Comparison," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_449, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_449
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    Cited by:

    1. Tania Burchardt, 2008. "Time and Income Poverty," CASE Reports casereport57, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.
    2. James Mahmud Rice & Jeromey B. Temple & Peter F. McDonald, 2021. "Intergenerational inequality and the intergenerational state," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 367-399, December.
    3. Max Haller & Markus Hadler & Gerd Kaup, 2013. "Leisure Time in Modern Societies: A New Source of Boredom and Stress?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(2), pages 403-434, April.
    4. Gheorghe MOROŞAN & Laurenția-Elena SCURTU, 2018. "The Dimension and Dynamics of Tax Revenues. A Vision on the EU Level," Book chapters-LUMEN Proceedings, in: Carmen NĂSTASE (ed.), The 14th Economic International Conference: Strategies and Development Policies of Territories: International, Country, Region, City, Location Challen, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 33, pages 375-395, Editura Lumen.
    5. Monika Engler & Stefan Staubli, 2008. "The Distribution of Leisure Time Across Countries and Over Time," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2008 2008-14, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen.
    6. Suckert, Lisa, 2021. "Von der Pandemie zu einer Neuordnung der Zeit? Zeitsoziologische Perspektiven auf das Verhältnis von Zeitlichkeit, Wirtschaft und Staat," MPIfG Discussion Paper 21/7, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    7. Victoria Ateca-Amestoy, 2011. "Leisure and Subjective Well-being," Chapters, in: Samuel Cameron (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Leisure, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.

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