Unemployment and time spent in household production1

Abstract

In recent decades, great interest has arisen in the scientific community about better un-derstanding and measuring of people's well-being. It is widely recognized that an exclusive concern with production and consumption, as measured in national accounts such as GDP, is an insufficient strategy and should not be the only source for guiding policy makers. This paper deals with nonmarket productive activities as sources of economic welfare, which are recognised as part of the objective well-being of households. In the analysis the micro data from two waves (2003-04 and 2013) of Polish time use surveys were used. The aim of the paper is to investigate how the differences in time use between employed and unemployed people arise from various underlying demographic characteristics. The results indicate how many minutes of additional household production correspond to each hour of market time not worked by unemployed individuals in various types of households. By this research strategy we distinguish the groups in society which suffer the most during recessions and high levels of unemployment, and those for which the cost of unfavourable market circumstances is comparatively low. The results indicate that, independently from the socioeconomic characteristics of households, the highest degrees of compensation arc seen among unemployed women. A comparison of the results from TUS 2004 and TUS 2013 reveals changes in the allocation of time for men and women. The scale of substitution in 2004 was greatest in the case of women who have children and the highest level of education. In 2013 the highest degree of compensation characterised young mothers and young fathers.