National Product and National Utility:
Accounts of
Socio-economic Wellbeing
from Time Budgets.
Jonathan Gershuny
Centre for Time Use Research
Department of Sociology
University of Oxford
Summary
• Time budgets can be used to produce
complete “extended national product” (eGNP)
accounts.
• Time diaries can also be used to measure
utility in the original (Bentham/Mill) sense...
• ...and used in turn to produce Gross National
Utility (GNU) accounts.
• eGNP and GNU give different pictures of
historical change in well-being.
Happiness, well-being & public purpose
•
•
•
•
Durkheim: happiness object of ec. progress?
Kahneman: subjective vs objective happiness
Easterlin Paradox: happiness vs GNP….
…but why is the disjunction between growth
and happiness surprising?
• Krueger, Kahneman (2009) Nat. Time Accs.
• Public policy implications: Stiglitz commission
Work and National Product
• Third person criterion:
– “work is any activity you can pay a third
party to do for you without losing the
benefit from it”.
• Hence:
– unpaid household work, volunteering...
– These can substitute for paid work
– “Extended National Product”
“…without losing the benefit…”
• Refers to income or material product of the
activity
• …ie implies that that there are no intrinsic
satisfactions (or dis-satisfactions) in the
conduct of paid and unpaid work.
• A strong assumption…
• Alternative: JS Mill “utility”:
– Consumption & production both generate
utilities  alternative national accounts.
Chains of provision for wants
• Human wants (food, shelter, care etc.),
met by a combination of activities.
• Three “factors of provision”:
–Paid work time
–Unpaid work time
–Consumption time
• Technical change alters the balance
among these.
A National Time Budget: UK adults, 1961
(minutes per UK adult aged 18+)
UK time_______________________________________
NonUK
leisure unpaid UK paid work time___________
work
Med, M’gers,
Other
Educ scientists Serv Manual total
Sleep
Shelter,nutrition
Home leisure
Out-Leis, shops
Med & Ed
564
94
159
213
12
87
25
5
B’ground servs
Exports
TOTAL
963
196
15
32
83
150
1440
Imprt
work
Input/output time budget
construction
• Associate each final commodity with one
(or more) categories of want…
• … multiply through by input/output
coefficients to get value added by
industry, plus imports and exports…
• … treating investment as if intermediate
outputs…
• …then multiply through by hours of work
by industry and occupation from LFS…
Gershuny 2000 Chapter 5(?)
A National Time Budget: UK adults, 1961
(minutes per UK adult aged 18+)
UK time_______________________________________
NonUK
leisure unpaid UK paid work time___________
work
Med, M’gers,
Other
Educ scientists Serv Manual total
Sleep
564
Imprt
work
564
94
159
1
15
32
71
374
24
213
12
1
2
5
12
245
4
87
25
0
2
13
12
139
3
12
2
10
8
37
2
B’ground servs
1
5
13
17
36
1
Exported work
0
5
11
30
45
6
15
32
83
150
1440
40
Shelter,nutrition
Home leisure
Out-Leis, shops
Med & Ed
TOTAL
5
963
196
A National Time Budget: UK adults, 2001
(minutes per UK adult aged 18+)
UK time_______________________________________
NonUK
leisure unpaid UK paid work time___________
work
Med, M’gers,
Other
Educ scientists Serv Manual total
Sleep
558
Imprt
work
558
65
147
3
17
18
25
276
22
Home leisure
244
24
2
3
4
4
281
3
Out-Leis, shops
136
52
3
10
5
206
4
24
5
11
4
53
3
B’ground servs
2
8
10
6
25
1
Exported work
2
11
11
18
41
10
34
47
62
62
1440
43
Shelter,nutrition
Med & Ed
TOTAL
8
1011
224
GNP: non-exhaustive,
input-based estimation
• GNP = ∑(paid time*wages)
Leisure,
Unpaid
Consumption work
All UK
time
1011
223
Paid
work
206
All UK
time
1440
Shift in paid/unpaid work
balance
All UK work time
Minutes/day
1961
2001
Paid work time
281
205
Unpaid work time
186
224
total
477
429
Paid as % of all work
59%
48%
GNP extension: valuing unpaid work
• Two methods:
1 Shadow wages
– Assumes unpaid value=own marginal wage
– values home-baked cake for brain surgeon at
10 times value of ditto for pastry chef
2 Shadow prices:
– Either: specialist (eg taxi driver for school trip)
– Or “housekeeper wage”
GNP and extended GNP, input-based
• GNP = ∑(paid time*wages)
• Extended GNP =
∑(paid time*wages) + ∑(unpaid time*shadow wages)
Leisure,
Unpaid
Consumption work
All UK
time
1011
223
Paid
work
206
All UK
time
1440
Valuing consumption events
• National accounting identity:
– Value of production ≡ value of consumption
• Alternative approach to extension:
– Count consumption events in diary (meals, trips,
outings, rests, nights’ sleep etc.)
– Use market prices for purchased instances
– Use market-equivalent prices for home produced
instances (eg taxis for car trips, hotel rates for nights
sleep etc); subtract costs of inputs (rent, materials etc).
(Luisella Goldschmidt-Clermont, Duncan Ironmonger, Sue Holloway)
Ext. GNP + nat. consump exhausts activity
• Extended GNP =
∑(paid time*wages)+ ∑(unpaid time*shadow wages)
≡
• (Extended) National Consumption =
Sum of actual or shadow values of every
consumption episode
Leisure,
Unpaid
Consumption work
All UK
time
1011
223
Paid
work
206
All UK
time
1440
UK National Product and Extended
National Product Estimates
(based on activity patterns of population aged 20-65)
Conventional Extended
National
National
Product
Product
Extended NP as
% of
Conventional NP
1961
100
100
164
1984
162
199
201
2001
295
334
185
Ext. GNP + nat. consump exhausts activity
• Extended GNP =
∑(paid time*wages)+ ∑(unpaid time*shadow wages)
≡
• (Extended) National Consumption =
Sum of actual or shadow values of every
consumption episode
• Exhaustive, BUT....
• value added focus implies no intrinsic
welfare consequence from work
• Hence need for more comprehensive
indicator
Utility is not happiness
• Happiness vs utility in Kahneman (1999):
– “subjective happiness”== judgement of general
affective state over a past interval (“Helen’s
thoughts about how happy she was in March”)
– “objective happiness” == instant enjoyment of
the moment, recorded by diary or similar…
– …“…an objective and normatively justified
definition of ‘true’ well-being that is based on
instantaneous utility” (p.4).
Process benefits, utility, enjoyment
• Utility: surveys of enjoyment of activities (JS Mill 1863)
– “What is there to decide whether a particular pleasure is worth
purchasing at the cost of a particular pain, except the feelings and
judgement of the experienced?”…“What means are there of
determining which is the acutest of two pains or the intensest of
two pleasurable sensations, except the general suffrage of
those familiar with both?”
(Utilitarianism Chapter 2)
• Process benefits (Juster and Stafford 1984)
• “joint production” with national output
• ∑(time in activity * questionnaire-based enjoyment measure)
• National Time Accounts (Krueger and Kahneman 2009)
• ∑(time in activity * diary-based enjoyment measure)
Affect time diary studies
• Robinson 1985 US open-coded selfcompletion diary, start/end intervals,
with enjoyment scale 0-10
• Erlich UK 1986 pre-coded selfcompletion diary, fixed 30-minute slots,
converted to start/end with terminal
affect score, enjoyment scale 5-1,
recoded 2*(5.5 - enjoyment score)
USA enjoyment scores, 95% confidence intervals
9.00
8.50
8.00
7.50
7.00
6.50
6.00
5.50
outsleep & other
home personal home
leisure
care
leisure
tv
child
care
MEAN
paid
work
travel shopping unpaid
work
Men’s and women’s enjoyment of activities
9.00
8.50
enjoyment scores
8.00
7.50
7.00
6.50
6.00
5.50
5.00
m
f
m
f
m
f
out- sleep & other
home personal home
leisure care leisure
m
f
tv
m
f
child
care
m
f
US
MEAN
US
m
f
paid
work
m
f
m
f
m
f
travel shopping unpaid
work
m
f
m
f
m
f
out- sleep & other
home personal home
leisure care leisure
m
f
tv
m
f
m
child
care
f
UK
MEAN
UK
m
f
paid
work
m
f
m
f
m
f
travel shopping unpaid
work
Utility estimation: analysis strategy
• Start with a “case=event” file…
• …attach to each event of a particular
activity type, aggregate estimates of total
time devoted by diarist to that activity
during the diary day…
• …weight each event by its duration and…
• …regress total time, total time squared,
and controls onto measured enjoyment of
the event.
Utility from one type of activity
Eq 1)
eij = ajkX + bjtj +cjt2j
Marginal utility for an activity
Eq 2)
δeij/δtj =bj+2cjtj
Total utility for the observation period
Eq 3)
u = (∑1i∑1j dij.eij )/T
Where:
–
–
–
–
–
–
eij is the enjoyment rating of each diary event
dij is the duration of each event
i events in a continuous diary sequence
j exclusive categories of activity (eg “sleep”, “watching television”, “paid work”)
X a vector of k control variables
tj total all time devoted by diarist to activity j over the entire period.
Estimate from j separate equations (one for each activity)
OLS regressions. Dependent : enjoyment ratings
11 point ( 0-10) scale for US, 5 point (1-9) scale for UK, p<.05 in bold
Other controls not shown: age, age sq, employed fulltime, has cores. partner,
youngest child aged <5, youngest child aged 5-15,
complete sec'ry ed, some tertiary educ, log hourly wage
US (1985)
Multiple R
Mins in activity/100
Mins acty sq/10000
leis
out
other
home pers.
leis
care
0.24
0.12
0.06
0.31
0.30
paid dom
work work
shop
child
care travel
0.15
0.16
0.09
0.22
0.26
0.25 -0.07
0.05
0.09
0.24 -0.08 -0.18
-0.02 -0.03 -0.02
tv
0.14
0.02 -0.01 -0.01
0.65
0.08
0.03
UK (1986)
Multiple R
0.17
0.20
0.19
0.21
0.24
0.28
0.29
0.23
0.26
Mins in activity/100
0.25
0.35
0.49
0.48 -0.08
0.00
1.16
0.47
0.19
Mins acty sq/10000
-0.02 -0.04 -0.04 -0.06
0.02
0.02 -0.16 -0.10 -0.01
Effect of time in activity on enjoyment of sleep and personal care
US: sleep+personal care
UK: sleep+personal care
2
0.8
0.6
enjoyment effect
marginal effect*60
0.4
0.2
0
200
400
600
-0.2
minutes per day
800
1000
enjoyment/marginal effects
enjoyment/marginal effects
1
1.6
1.2
enjoyment effect
marginal effect*60
enjoyment effect
marginal effect*60
0.8
0.4
0
200
-0.4
400
600
800
minutes per day
1000
Effect of time in activity on enjoyment of non-tv leisure at home
US: non-tv leisure at home
UK: non-tv leisure at home
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
enjoyment effect
marginal effect*60
0
0
500
-0.2
enjoyment/marginal effect
enjoyment/marginal effects
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
enjoyment effect
marginal effect*60
0
1000
0
200
400
600
-0.2
minutes per day
minutes per day
800
1000
Effect of time in activity on enjoyment of out of home leisure
US: out of home leisure
UK: out of home leisure
0.6
0.6
0.4
enjoyment effect
marginal effect*60
0.2
enjoyment/marginal effect
enjoyment/marginal effects
0.8
0.5
0.4
0.3
enjoyment effect
marginal effect*60
0.2
0.1
0
0
0
100
200
300
minutes per day
400
0
100
200
300
minutes per day
400
Correspondence in
UK/US “marginal utility=0” points
Marginal utility equals zero (mins/day)
 results where at least one temporal coefficient (t, t2) is significant
 bold where both temporal coefficients for the country are significant;
 red where the net marginal effect is positive.
non-tv
leisure home
sleep,
out
leisure personal tv
US
448
702
855
192
UK 561
445
617
430
domestic
paid
unpaid
child
work
work shopping care
ns
ns
ns
ns
370
235
207
6
travel
ns
ns
Counterfactual experiment
• Estimate joint UK-US utility equations…
• ...standardise for each sex (mean=0,sd=1)...
• …then use coefficients to impute aggregate utility
for various MTUS surveys for a range of periods
and nations.
• Interpret result as answering:
– “What would be the utility consequence if a
population of Anglo-Americans had Nordic or
Corporatist or Southern time budgets and
other socio-demographic characteristics?”
Multinational Time Use Study: 50 surveys, 20 countries, 550K days
1961-69
1970-74
1975-84
1985-89
1990-94
1995-99
2138
2682
9618
3584
8936
10726
2000-
(N of Days)
Canada
Denmark
France
Netherlands
Norway
UK
USA
Finland
Italy
Australia
Israel
Sweden
Germany
Austria
South
Africa
Slovenia
Spain
Column
total
N surveys
4173
2898
4633
6516
9292
2021
4019
6068
14898
7010
11908
1491
3263
9206
4935
15219
37764
3181
3687
3158
6129
9386
13937
3126
7065
22554
25162
14631
3227
1962
1151
8354
11851
7904
17248
20340
1686
51206
14315
7747
35813
14217
12273
46774
22071
14778
46585
86770
99453
54366
227059
5
4
6
8
9
7
11
National Time Value Accounts (GNU):
Nordic countries
0.5
0.5
Nordic men
0.4
Denmark
0.3
Sweden
Nordic women
0.4
0.3
Norway
0.2
Finland
0.1
0.2
0.1
0
0
1975-84
1985-89
1990-94
1995-99
2000-4
1975-84
-0.1
-0.1
-0.2
-0.2
-0.3
-0.3
1985-89
1990-94
1995-99
2000-4
Denmark
Sweden
Norway
-0.4
-0.4
Finland
National Time Value Accounts (GNU):
Corporatist countries
0.5
0.5
Corporatist men
0.4
Corporatist women
France
0.4
Netherlands
0.3
Germany
Austria
0.2
0.3
0.2
Slovenia
0.1
0.1
0
0
1975-84
-0.1
1985-89
1990-94
1995-99
2000-4
1975-84
1985-89
1990-94
1995-99
2000-4
-0.1
-0.2
-0.2
-0.3
-0.3
-0.4
-0.4
France
Netherlands
Germany
Austria
Slovenia
National Time Value Accounts (GNU):
Anglophone countries
0.5
0.5
Anglophone women
Anglophone men
0.4
UK
USA
Canada
Australia
0.3
0.2
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.1
0
0
1975-84
1985-89
1990-94
1995-99
UK
USA
Canada
Australia
2000-4
1975-84
-0.1
-0.1
-0.2
-0.2
-0.3
-0.3
-0.4
-0.4
1985-89
1990-94
1995-99
2000-4
National Time Value Accounts (GNU):
Southern countries
0.1
Southern men and women
1999-2001
0.05
0
men
women
-0.05
-0.1
-0.15
-0.2
-0.25
-0.3
Italy
Spain
Different time-use patterns,
different evolution of GNU
• NORDIC: above the mean GNU: women
rising substantially.
• CORPORATIST: both sexes converging
on the mean.
• ANGLOPHONE: both sexes falling below
the mean.
• SOUTHERN: men above the mean,
women well below it.
Explanation?
• Seems to be reasonably straightforward:
– Growth in total work time in Anglo
countries...
– ... shift from paid work to unpaid work.
– Women in Southern countries left with
disproportionate share of the unpaid work.
– Women in the Nordic countries have
smaller, fairer share of the unpaid work
Lesson for public policy:
• Economic growth can reduce “objective
happiness”
• Shorter working hours, more (paid
employment) childcare support to reduce
unpaid work, fairer sharing between men
and women could both encourage growth
and increase happiness.
Summary
• Difference between National Income and
National Utility.
• Both derived from time budget tables.
• Utility measures derived from diaries.
• Counterfactual utility analysis.
→ Policy conclusions
References
J Gershuny 2000 Changing Times: Work and Leisure in Post Industrial Society,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
J Gershuny 2012 “National Utility: measuring the enjoyment of activities” European
Sociological Review doi: 10.1093/esr/jcs077
Luisella Goldschmidt-Clermont, 1999 Households Non-SNA Production: Labour Time,
Value of Labour and of Product, and Contribution to Extended Private Consumption.
Review of Income and Wealth 45(4), 519-529.
Holloway, Sue, Sandra Short & Sarah Tamplin. 2002. Household Satellite Account:
(Experimental) Methodology. London, UK: Office for National Statistics.
Duncan Ironmonger, 1999 Counting Outputs, Capital Inputs and Caring Labor:
Estimating Gross Household Product. Feminist Economics 2(3), 37-64.
Tom Juster and Frank Stafford 1984 (eds), Time, Goods and Well-Being, Ann Arbor:
Institute for Social Research.
Danny Kahneman 1999 “Objective Happiness” in Well-Being: The Foundations of
Hedonic Psychology eds DI Kahneman, E Diener and N Schwarz, New York:
Russel Sage Foundation, pp. 3-25.
AB Krueger, D Kahneman, D Schkade, N Schwarz and AA Stone 2009 “National Time
Accounting: The Currency of Life” in AB Krueger (ed) Measuring the Subjective
Wellbeing of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, University
of Chicago Press/NBER, pp 9-81.