Family Time: The Social Organization of Care (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Family Time: The Social Organization of Care Linda Seidel (bio) Folbre, Nancy, and Michael Bittman, eds. Family Time: The Social Organization of Care. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. 242 pp. Time devoted to the care of children and elders is not simply a matter of individual choice or even family negotiation, but of social policy. So say Nancy Folbre, Mac Arthur fellow (1998–2003) and University of Massachusetts economics professor; Michael Bittman, senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales; and their international group of collaborators in Family Time. Where state-supported alternatives are lacking, women still devote the lion's share of time to family care, typically diminishing their involvement in paid work and the quality of leisure they enjoy. Although the amount of absolute time parents in Western societies spend with their children may have decreased, given the increased labor force participation of women, the "faceto face" quality time with children has increased, giving the lie to the notion that the employment of women has resulted in the neglect of children. Both mothers and fathers spend significant amounts of activity time with their children, but women [End Page 250] still spend twice as much time as men in childcare and housework. Egalitarian attitudes have not produced egalitarian negotiations between women and men. Thus, nations that value egalitarian results that would allow more women to participate fully in paid employment and career development might follow the example of Finland in offering high-quality childcare subsidized by the state. In chapter 1, "A Theory of the Misallocation of Time," Nancy Folbre deliberately invokes and challenges Gary Becker's "A Theory of the Allocation of Time" (1965) and the work of other neoclassical economists who claim that women "choose to specialize in nonmarket production within the home" because they are simply following their own economic self-interest, which also produces the most efficient social outcome (7). Arguing for a more interdisciplinary approach, Folbre cites the sociologists' observation that "cultural norms . . . affect time allocation" (11). Furthermore, neoclassical economics posits selfishness as necessary to rational decision-making, yet "family transactions" are supposed to be based on "altruism" (10), a traditional feminine virtue. The public benefits of altruism are substantial, extending not only to the person cared for, but to "taxpayers," saved the expense of "institutional care that would otherwise be necessary" in the case of dependent elders, and to the "[f]ellow workers, citizens, and future spouses" of children who are well reared (15). Folbre warns that a society that consistently under-rewards care-giving, in comparison to "wage employment," will not generate enough care-giving, thus producing "a social misallocation of time" (16). In other words, social policy should factor in the social value of family time, the cost of altruism, and the need for care, questions that are not adequately addressed in conventional accounts of national economies. The remaining ten essays in the volume present and evaluate much of the available data, collected in rich countries from time-use diaries, relevant to the policy-maker or activist who desires to bring about a more equitable social allocation of time. In "Family Time and Public Policy in the United States," Timothy M Smeeding and Joseph T. Marchand point to the inadequacy of time-use research in the U.S., possibly hinting at an ideological component in this omission: "The United States is the only major rich nation that fails to provide paid parental leave from work" (27). The results of "nonmarket production" in terms of childcare, elder-care, and community volunteer work have gone largely unmeasured because of "'money illusion,'" the idea "that only goods and services with an explicit price tag on them affect economic welfare" (34). The American Time Use Survey, initiated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2003, is described by the writers as useful but insufficient: "Because it will collect data on only one individual within each of the sampled households, it will offer only limited insights into the intrafamily distribution of time" (37). Michelle J. Budig and Nancy Folbre, in "Activity, Proximity, or Responsibility?: Measuring Parental Childcare Time," agree that the available time-use data with respect to childcare is inadequate...