Abstract: A time use perspective in economics has to recognise that time is more than an input to commodities, produced by households. Time is not money! If anything, time is life. How we spend our time provides us with skills as well as information. It determines the formation of habits and preferences. The activities we pursue with great motivation and enthusiasm, be it paid work or any other activity, substantially influence our personal abilities, attitudes and perception of the world. Dealing with time use has the capacity to reveal cultural patterns detrimental to a degrowth society. It also has the capacity to find out about necessary societal changes. In this short presentation I try to make concrete recommendations how time use has to be changed to achieve an alternative degrowth society. Those recommendations also require institutional change and changes in corporate behaviour.

This media entry was a contribution to the special session "Exploring transformation to a radical alternative society (RAGE)" at the 4th International Degrowth Conference in Leipzig in 2014.