Time budgets and other time issues
A landmark study by one of our speakers (Arnulf Grübler) has shown
that, in the long run, time budgets evolution is characterised by remarkably
stable trends at the macroscopic level. There is a powerful, general and
steady trend towards decrease of time used (over a lifetime) for work and
regular increase of time used for non-work and in particular for leisure
type of activities. But when analysed at a more microscopic level (for
instance time budget allocated within non-work activities to various types
of information exchanges or interaction activities) the picture is less
clear. At this level, there seems to be more flexibility, as illustrated
by the speed at which television viewing has conquered a very large share
of time budgets just after World War II, or how it recently receded in
favour of time spent playing video games and using personal computers.
In the field of transport, studies have shown that time budgets are often
explaining transport and commuting behaviours at the level of individual
decisions: an individual cannot afford to use some sustainable way of transportation
because of lack of time. But they are explained by them at the level of
the society as a whole: time spent commuting grows as a result of the building
up of a car centred transportation and habitat infrastructure accommodating
these individual « preferences ».
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