Family Time: The Social Organization of Care

by Michael Bittman (Editor), Nancy Folbre (Editor)

Overview

The time we have to care for one another, especially for our children and our elderly, is more precious to us than anything else in the world. Yet we have more experience accounting for money than we do for time. In this volume, leading experts in analysis of time use from across the globe explore the interface between time use and family policy. The contributors:

* show how social institutions limit the choices that individuals can make about how to divide their time between paid and unpaid work
* challenge conventional surveys that offer simplistic measures of time spent in childcare or elder care
* summarize empirical evidence concerning trends in time devoted to the care of family members
* debate ways of assigning a monetary value to this time.

This informative and enlightening book is well researched, well thought through and well written. An important read for students of feminist economics, sociology and gender studies, the contributors here argue that time is not money, in fact time is more important than money.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415310093
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/26/2004
Series:	Routledge IAFFE Advances in Feminist Economics , #2
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nancy Folbre is Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and staff economist with the Centre for Popular Economics. Amongst other books she has written is Who Pays for the Kids? also published by Routledge.

Michael Bittman is Senior Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales, Australia, chair of the United Nations Expert Group on Time-Use Surveys and co-author (with Jocelyn Pixley) of The Double Life of the Family.

Table of Contents

Introduction Part 1: The Big Picture 1. The Misallocation of Time 2. Time Use and Public Policy Part 2: Using the Yardstick of Time to Capture Care 3. Proximity, or Responsibility?: Measuring Parental Child Care Time 4. Making the Invisible Visible: The Life and Time(s) of Informal Caregivers Part 3: Valuing Child Care and Elder Care 5. Bringing Up Bobby and Betty: The Inputs and Outputs of Child Care Time 6. Valuing Informal Elder Care Part 4: Parenting, Employment and the Pressures of Care 7. Packaging Care: What Happens When Children Receive Non-Parental Care? 8. Parenting and Employment: What Time-Use Surveys Show 9. The Rush Hour: The Quality of Time and Gender Equity Part 5: International Comparisons 10. Dual Earner Families in Four Countries 11. Parenthood Without Penalty