Michael Bittman – författare

The modern family is under strain. What we crave most from our families is intimacy, warmth and self-fulfilment but we often find this difficult to achieve. We hold onto these expectations of our families even in the face of contradictory experiences, so the family sustains a double life.The authors explore the gap between our values, expectations and yearnings, and our experiences of everyday family life. Family ritual, political rhetoric, advertising images and television family sitcoms are all windows onto what we want and expect - our myths of the family. Yet our aspirations for intimacy and self-fulfilment are frustrated by unacknowledged inequalities between men and women, and parents and children. The inequalities have their origins in the division of domestic labour and in labour markets that disregard family responsibilities.The Double Life Of The Family argues that our expectations of family life are more powerful than is usually believed and have enormous influence on both the way governments structure social policy and on the decisions made by ordinary people.

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.

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.

This two-volume handbook, written by leading international scholars, provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on the collection, analysis, and application of time use data.Time is a crucial yet finite social resource, fundamental to processes of growth, equality, and well-being. Much of the world’s essential production—raising children, preparing food, household maintenance—occurs within households, and relies on time, rather than monetary exchange, as its central input. Despite its centrality, this non-market dimension is often overlooked in official indicators. Time use diary data is increasingly recognised as the foremost source of reliable information on these key temporal dimensions of daily life.The first volume addresses methodological issues concerning the collection and analysis of data. Readers are introduced first to general methodology and design issues, followed by an overview of major time use diary surveys that are available worldwide, and an exploration of the innovations in design that are currently under development.With a focus on practical knowledge and understandings of how to collect, manage and analyse this type of data, it will be a valuable point of reference for students and scholars with interests in the methodological aspects of time use research, and will be relevant to numerous fields including sociology, demography, social policy, economics, gender studies, psychology, leisure studies, public health, and related disciplines. The second volume of the handbook provides an authoritative outline of the contribution of time-use research to key contemporary scholarly and policy applications in both the Global North and the Global South, and is available at www.routledge.com/9781041123972.

This two-volume handbook, written by leading international scholars, provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on the collection, analysis, and application of time use data.Time is a crucial yet finite social resource, fundamental to processes of growth, equality, and well-being. Much of the world’s essential production—raising children, preparing food, household maintenance—occurs within households, and relies on time, rather than monetary exchange, as its central input. Despite its centrality, this non-market dimension is often overlooked in official indicators. Time use diary data is increasingly recognised as the foremost source of reliable information on these key temporal dimensions of daily life.The second volume provides an authoritative outline of the contribution of time use research to key contemporary scholarly and policy applications in both the Global North and the Global South. The chapters consist of a wide-ranging selection of exemplary contributions chosen to illustrate the varied areas of substantive empirical research for which time use diary data has been used in research across the globe, including gender and life-course studies, research on employment and the labour force, care-giving, and contributions to the measurement of both population well-being and sustainable development goals.With a focus on the application and future directions of time use research, it will be a valuable point of reference for students and scholars from fields including sociology, demography, social policy, economics, gender studies, psychology, leisure and tourism studies, public health, and legal studies. The first volume of the handbook addresses methodological issues concerning the collection and analysis of data and is available at www.routledge.com/9781041123934.