Do Urban Time Policies Have a Real Impact on Quality of Life? And Which Methods Are Apt to Evaluate Them?

Abstract

Time-policy measures, under current ‘industrial relations’, regularly focus on the workplace-limited time interests of employees. In service societies, however, these time interests frequently conflict with time interests of other stakeholders – e.g. of users, of services and of citizens. The contribution discusses, both theoretically and empirically, how such ‘time conflicts’ can be solved, and are actually solved, in a fair manner. Case studies of time measures in childcare and other service institutions investigate three issues: Do these time measures take into account the ‘time stakes’ of both users and providers of services? Do they have a real impact on quality of life of both groups? Do gains in quality of life of users go at the cost of quality of life of employees (or vice versa)? This chapter concludes that mindful time policies lead to gains in quality of life and ‘win-win constellations’ between users and providers of services. It underlines the conditions of fair solutions of time conflicts. It thus outlines ‘work relations’ (as opposed to ‘industrial relations’) which are adequate to service societies.