Why Time Deficits Matter for Poverty
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A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Antonopoulos, Rania; Masterson, Thomas; Zacharias, Ajit Research Report It's about "time": Why time deficits matter for poverty Public Policy Brief, No. 126 Provided in Cooperation with: Levy Economics Institute of Bard College Suggested Citation: Antonopoulos, Rania; Masterson, Thomas; Zacharias, Ajit (2012) : It's about "time": Why time deficits matter for poverty, Public Policy Brief, No. 126, ISBN 978-1-936192-26-7, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/121984 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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The Institute is publishing this research with the conviction that it is a constructive and positive contribution to discussions and debates on relevant policy issues. Neither the Institute’s Board of Governors nor its advisers necessarily endorse any proposal made by the authors. The Institute believes in the potential for the study of economics to improve the human condition. Through scholarship and research it gen - erates viable, effective public policy responses to important economic problems that profoundly affect the quality of life in the United States and abroad. The present research agenda includes such issues as financial instability, poverty, employment, gender, problems associated with the distribu - tion of income and wealth, and international trade and competitiveness. In all its endeavors, the Institute places heavy emphasis on the val - ues of personal freedom and justice. Editor: Michael Stephens Text Editor: Barbara Ross The Public Policy Brief Series is a publication of the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, Blithewood, PO Box 5000, Annandale-on- Hudson, NY 12504-5000. For information about the Levy Institute, call 845-758-7700 or 202-887-8464 (in Washington, D.C.), e-mail [email protected], or visit www.levyinstitute.org. The Public Policy Brief Series is produced by the Bard Publications Office. Copyright © 2012 by the Levy Economics Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information-retrieval system, without permis - sion in writing from the publisher. ISSN 1063 5297 ISBN 978-1-936192-26-7 Preface We cannot adequately assess how much or how little progress we distribution of time and income poverty in Argentina, Chile, and have made in addressing the condition of the most vulnerable in Mexico. What their results show is that, despite prevailing levels our societies, or provide accurate guidance to policymakers of social transfers, public goods, and social care provisioning, intent on improving each individual’s and household’s ability to policy has a long way to go to address the condition of the sig - reach a basic standard of living, if we do not have a reliable means nificant number of people who experience poverty-inducing of measuring who is being left behind. With the support of the time deficits. The differences between the official and LIMTIP United Nations Development Programme and the International poverty estimates in all three countries studied reveal that there Labour Organization, Senior Scholars Rania Antonopoulos and is a substantial part of the population whose poverty is effectively Ajit Zacharias and Research Scholar Thomas Masterson have “hidden” from policymakers. Moreover, LIMTIP allows us to constructed an alternative measure of poverty that, when applied measure the extent to which some individuals and households to the cases of Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, reveals significant officially recognized as poor are even worse off, once time deficits blind spots in the official numbers. and LIMTIP-adjusted income deficits are take into account, than Standard estimates commonly provide us with an incom - the official numbers suggest. The authors also look at the ways in plete understanding of poverty because they operate under a which time poverty and LIMTIP-adjusted income poverty affect flawed assumption: that all individuals and households have various segments of the population to differing degrees. enough time to engage in the unpaid cooking, cleaning, and care - Finally, Antonopoulos, Masterson, and Zacharias conducted giving that are an essential part of a minimum standard of living. a full-time employment simulation to measure the impacts on As the authors demonstrate, continuing to take for granted the time and income poverty of a hypothetical scenario in which time and income needed for meeting household production every employable adult who is out of the workforce or working thresholds not only obscures how various populations are far - part time moves to full-time paid employment. While they found ing, but may also hinder the development of a more effective and that this hypothetical expansion of full-time employment would comprehensive policy response that would help lift a wider lift many individuals and households out of poverty, there are swathe of the population out of poverty. some for whom the expansion of employment opportunities The official estimates ignore the plight of various individu - would not represent an effective path out of poverty. The authors als and groups who commonly experience time shortages that note that, to be effective, employment-creation strate gies need prevent them from being able to perform necessary household to be complemented by policies designed to address the poverty- work, or income shortages that prevent them from purchasing inducing effects of time deficits. They conclude by outlining an market substitutes for household production deficits. Without integrated policy agenda that would cut across class and gender sufficient time to devote to household production, and without lines and address deficits in jobs, earnings, and the provision of the necessary surplus income to buy market substitutes, indi - social care; that would address, in other words, a fuller spectrum viduals and households are falling through the cracks in ways of the challenges, above and below the radar, faced by those that do not show up in the official poverty numbers. struggling with poverty. To address these blind spots, the authors developed a two- As always, I welcome your comments. dimensional measure of time and income poverty, the Levy Institute Measure of Time and Income Poverty (LIMTIP), and Dimitri B. Papadimitriou, President applied the measure to determine the depth, breadth, and October 2012 Levy Economics Institute of Bard College 3 Acknowledgments This policy brief presents findings from a research project undertaken by the Gender Equality and the Economy and the Distribution of Income and Wealth programs of the Levy Economics Institute. It draws upon a Research Project Report that, alongside several other relevant documents, can be found at www.levyinstitute.org/research/?prog=20. The project was undertaken during 2011, and we wish to express our gratitude to the United Nations Development Programme Regional Service Centre for Latin America and the Caribbean (UNDP RSC-LAC) for intellectual and financial sup - port, and in particular to RSC-LAC Gender Practice Leader Carmen de la Cruz, without whom this undertaking would not have been possible. In addition, we are grateful to the International Labour Organization (ILO) for the support provided for the case study in Chile. Last but not least, we are indebted to our colleagues for their research contributions and background documents for the case studies: for Argentina, Valeria Esquivel, Instituto de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento; for Chile, María Elena Valenzuela and Sarah Gammage, ILO; and, for Mexico, Mónica E. Orozco Corona, Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres, Government of Mexico, and Armando Sánchez Vargas, Universidad Nacional