White collar workers hurry to their trains during rush hour in Tokyo.

Money-rich, time-poor, is a term used to describe a class of people that, despite having financial freedom, suffer from having very little free leisure time. The phrase "money-rich, time-poor" was coined in the late 20th century in Britain and is still used today.[1]

This has a lot to do with the socio-economic circumstances of the rich and poor classes alike. However, looking at the differences between the rich class and the poor class the perception of time can differ greatly. Economist Maynard Keynes wrote in his 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" that by the time his grandchildren were grown, they would be working 15 hour weeks and have time for the better things in life.[2] While average market-work hours did fall by more than a quarter between 1931 and 2011, the decline has not been as drastic as Keynes predicted.[3]

Currency of life

Time by all accounts, is the most valuable thing people can possess. And yet it is taken for granted by so many. And despite the extreme amount of global wealth it has not transferred over to time affluence.[4] One of the major downfalls of recognizing time poverty is the inability to distinguish between measuring it and identifying it. An article from 2012 highlights the research that was gone into measuring time usage between various types of people in the UK. The data suggests that time for personal activities varied greatly between men vs women, married vs single, and employed or not.[5] Today we can see, especially in the western culture certain types of people still struggle greatly with being time poor. According to UK statistics from 2018, parents who live with young children had up to 14 hours less per week of free time. This is also amplified by the fact that this is a serious problem especially for women since it is generally expected of them to care for the children and maintain the household while the man is away working. [6]

Free time paradox

Life after the COVID-19 pandemic has changed dramatically for people of all financial classes globally. The rich were supposed to have the most free time while the working middle and poor were meant to have the least, but the opposite is happening. This is in part due to the pandemic. The data suggests that during the height of the Covid Pandemic, 86% of households reported at least one family member became unemployed.[7] For other people that were forced to stay home during the lockdown, discovered that life was worth more than just sitting behind a desk all day or having to dedicate longer hours working remotely while giving somebody else your precious time, just wasn't worth it anymore. A brief article to the community from the Guardian publication referred to these type of people as time millionaires.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "MONEY RICH - TIME POOR". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2023-10-09.
  2. ↑ John Maynard Keynes, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)," in Essays in Persuasion (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1932), 358–373. https://www.aspeninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/files/content/upload/Intro_and_Section_I.pdf
  3. ↑ Crafts, Nicholas (2022). "The 15-Hour Week: Keynes's Prediction Revisited" (PDF). Economica. 89 (356): 815–829. doi:10.1111/ecca.12439. ISSN 0013-0427. S2CID 251208706.
  4. ↑ [Zheng, Xingshan, et al. "Being Busy, Feeling Poor: The Scale Development and Validation of Perceived Time Poverty." International Journal of Selection and Assessment, vol. 30, no. 4, 2022, pp. 596–613, https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12395.]
  5. ↑ Chatzitheochari, Stella, and Sara Arber. "Class, Gender and Time Poverty: a Time-Use Analysis of British Workers' Free Time Resources." The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 63, no. 3, 2012, pp. 451–71, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2012.01419.x.
  6. ↑ Bishop, Kate. "The "time poverty" that robs parents of success". Family Tree BBC, February, 2022. https://www.bbc/worklife/article/20220201-the-time-poverty-that-robs-parents-of-success
  7. ↑ Gupta, Anubhab, et al. "Economic Impacts of the COVID−19 Lockdown in a Remittance-Dependent Region." American Journal of Agricultural Economics, vol. 103, no. 2, 2021, pp. 466–85, https://doi.org/10.1111/ajae.12178.
  8. ↑ "Tell us: has the pandemic made you decide to quit your job or work less? We would like to hear from people rejecting the rat race to become more time-rich during the pandemic; We would like to hear from people rejecting the rat race to become more time-rich during the pandemic." Guardian [London, England], 29 Sept. 2021, p. NA. Gale Health and Wellness, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A677275544/HWRC?u=viva2_nvcc&sid=bookmark-HWRC&xid=0b154bf4. Accessed 3 May 2023.



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