Time and Income Poverty - A Micro Analysis with the German Time Use Survey 2001/2002 of the Federal Statistical Office

In modern societies such as the Federal Republic of Germany, the pace of social life is accelerating, and people are increasingly experiencing a sense of time stress. Today, goods and services are experiencing a "boom" that promises to save time. Convenience products, Internet-enabled cell phones or books about "saving time" in the bestseller lists are evidence of this development. Accordingly, the costs of participating in social life are increasingly being paid not only in euros and cents but also in hours and minutes. The time resource is thus gaining in importance compared to the income resource. Correspondingly, poverty or generally welfare analyses that look exclusively at people's monetary income are inappropriate. An increasing number of poverty researchers recognize that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and can therefore only be captured realistically by a multidimensional poverty concept. With the additional consideration of time (and later further dimensions), a first step towards a more comprehensive view of poverty should also be achieved in the context of the dissertation project. Against the background of the development described above, three central questions will be empirically worked out: - Who has relatively little time at his disposal and can therefore be considered to be poor in time? - Who has relatively little money at their disposal and can therefore be described as low-income? - How can these dimensions be brought together in an interdependent multidimensional concept of poverty? The results of the time- and multidimensional poverty analyses represent a novelty. They can provide starting points for government measures to reduce poverty and the social tempo ("deceleration"). By presenting a new, multidimensional perspective, the findings of the dissertation enrich poverty research and the discussion about the "working poor" in Germany. By linking time and income, the living situation of these time- and income-poor people can be reflected more realistically. The results support the targeting of socio-political measures to people in need and are thus a contribution to more justice.