Time use: No. 3 in the list of Gross National Happiness criteria

There have been a number of time use studies over the years, the object of which is to provide information which could be used to assess the impacts of policies, compare cultures and societies, gauge lifestyle changes, and assess the needs of special groups of people such as the old and disabled. They provide information on unpaid work, voluntary and other community activities that are vital to the well-being of individuals.

A current study seeks to discover how much time people allocate to various activities, identifying the amount of household work, care work and other unpaid work that is normally not included in conventional economic accounts. It tries to find out how patterns of time use differ by gender, age, and other social and demographic characteristics, and assess how patterns of time use relate to reported levels of happiness.

I wonder how the researchers cope with some of the following examples of human behaviour?

– Person A is an extrovert and is happy attending community meetings, but might not be happy with the politics involved. Person B is an introvert, can’t abide neighborly get-togethers, but considers himself happy limiting his social interactions. What do statistics mean in this case?

– One person might be happy as Larry sitting for six hours a day in front of the TV; someone else, with a dozen talents and aptitudes might be unhappy because, although he has an interesting life, there is so little time to pursue his interests.

– Some people are quite content wasting time. Others are just disorganised and get little done. They live in a perennial muddle, although they would not report it or even admit it to themselves.

– isolation is something that is probably rather rare in traditional societies, but very common in the West, breeding mental disorder and depression. How does an elderly person in poor health, unable to leave the house, cope with a solitary existence and no social life. Many people in this situation cannot, or are not used to reading books. How does this desperately miserable life affect the general picture of time use?

– Workholics, whose allocation of available time is dreadful, are usually quite happy working ridiculous hours. They don’t know what else they would otherwise do. All the same, they get stressed out and occasionally need to relax and day-dream. But would thry admit it to an academic researcher?

– I know someone whose chief thrill is visiting a shopping mall. Most of us can’t imagine that as happy-making, but there is none so queer as folks.

– Americans work longer hours, have shorter vacations and little sick leave in comparison to all other nations. As a result they get a disproportionate amount of stress-related sickness. But because everyone else is in the same boat, nobody complains (unless, of course, they have lived and worked abroad, where productivity is arguably higher).

As an Epicurean I am all in favour of happiness. Naturally – I am, a follower of Epicurus. But Epicurus would be the first to say that there are many paths to happiness. I am suspicious about academic studies that purport to analyse it. Does anyone agree?

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