Major findings

In concluding, let us begin by summarizing the main findings of the book in bullet-point fashion:

• People have more temporal autonomy than we might imagine. ‘Spare time’, as conventionally measured (time not actually spent in paid labour, unpaid household labour or personal care) constitutes less than half of people's true discretionary time (time they did not strictly need to spend in those activities) (see Figure 5.1).

• People's temporal autonomy depends mostly on whether or not they have children, and whether or not they have a partner to help with the children. Lone parents have vastly less discretionary time than dual-earner couples without children – more than 40 hours a week less in the most extreme case, the US (see Figure 3.2). Looking just at ‘spare time’, in which respect the two groups are about the same, would mask that fact (see Figure 5.5).

• In general, women have less – but generally only a little less – temporal autonomy than men. However, stay-at-home wives, even with children, have much more – over 9 hours more – discretionary time than breadwinning fathers, on average (see Figure 14.2). Again, looking just at ‘spare time’, in which respect the two groups are about the same, would mask that fact (see Figure 5.7).

• Temporal autonomy varies widely from one country to another. In Sweden, where discretionary time is highest, people have over 9 more hours a week than in France, where it is lowest (see Figure 3.1).

• Temporal autonomy varies with welfare and gender regimes. On average, people have 5 hours more discretionary time in social-democratic/female-friendly welfare/gender regimes than in either liberal/individualist or corporatist/traditionalist regimes (see Figure 8.1).

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