Free Time Across the Life Course
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211000733 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217211000733
Political Studies
2023, Vol. 71(1) 89 –105
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/00323217211000733
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Free Time Across the Life
Course
Malte Jauch
Abstract
In most industrialised countries, citizens enjoy a very large amount of free time towards the end
of their lives, when they are retired, but find it very costly to access free time during the middle
part of their lives. This is concerning because those who die early are deprived of the reward of
free time that retirement holds. Extreme discrepancies between a time-rich old age and a time-
scarce middle age are not, however, inevitable: some states incentivise long work hours during
middle age in combination with early retirement, whereas others incentivise shorter work hours
during middle age and later retirement. This variation raises the thus far unexplored question of
how a just society should design policies that affect the costs of access to free time across the life
course. I answer this question by using a hypothetical decision-situation where prudent choosers
must allocate access to free time across different life stages.
Keywords
free time, retirement, social justice, free time across life stages, hypothetical choice
Accepted: 17 February 2021
Introduction
Many people in industrialised countries feel pressured for time. For example, 48% of
Americans say they don’t have enough time and 35% say they’re always rushed (Newport,
2015). One explanation for this is that there are big differences in the amount of free time
different individuals enjoy (Hamermesh, 2018; Robinson, 2013). For example, single
mothers with low income have much less free time than high-earning childless couples
(Goodin, 2008: Ch. 3). These interpersonal discrepancies in free time raise interesting
questions of social justice to which political philosophers have recently devoted some
attention (Rose, 2016). But there is also an intrapersonal reason for why people can lack
free time that is often overlooked – that is, a reason that has to do with how free time is
distributed across different stages within people’s lives.1 In industrialised countries, citi-
zens typically enjoy a very large amount of free time towards the end of their lives, when
Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester, UK
Corresponding author:
Malte Jauch, Department of Government, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK.
Email: m.jauch@essex.ac.uk
1000733PSX0010.1177/00323217211000733Political StudiesJauch
research-article2021
Article
90 Political Studies 71(1)
they are retired, but it is much more costly for people to access free time during the mid-
dle part of their lives (Eriksson and Rooth, 2014; Eurostat, 2003; Nunley et al., 2017;
Pedulla, 2016; Weisshaar, 2018). To illustrate, workers are often reluctant to interrupt
their careers because re-entering the job market after a lengthy break from work can be
very difficult. This intrapersonal discrepancy between a time-scarce middle age and a
time-rich old age provides another reason for why so many people in industrialised coun-
tries feel pressured for time.
The fact that middle-aged people face high costs in accessing free time is by no means
natural or unavoidable. States can choose between different regulatory regimes that
expand or reduce citizens’ opportunities to access free time at different life stages. At one
end of this spectrum are conceivable regimes that incentivise citizens to work as much as
possible during middle age, in order to retire as early as possible. Under such regimes
people might have an average work week of 70 hours and an average retirement age of 50.
We can refer to a regime that tends towards this extreme of possible distributions of free
time across the life course as a postponement regime because it incentivises citizens to
postpone their enjoyment of free time until they’re retired.2 At the other end of the spec-
trum are conceivable regimes that incentivise the middle-aged to enjoy as much free time
as possible, although this means that they must continue to carry out some work until
they’re quite old. An example would be a regime with an average work week of 25 hours
and an average retirement age of 75. Let us refer to a regime that tends towards this pat-
tern as a frontloading regime because it leads citizens to ‘consume’ a large part of their
lifetime share of free time when they’re still relatively young.
To illustrate the distinction between postponement and frontloading tendencies, con-
sider the regulatory regimes of Japan and the Netherlands. Japan’s economy encourages
workers to postpone the enjoyment of free time until old age.3 It does this, for example,
by rewarding workers who don’t interrupt their career with wage increases – a practice
that is often referred to as ‘seniority-based pay’.4 Beyond that, Japan’s pension system
makes it attractive (and in many cases mandatory) to retire early. Japanese workers thus
work on average 1680 hours per year and retire on average at age 63 (Organisation for
Economic Co-operation (OECD), 2019; OECD Labour Force Statistics, 2019). In the
Netherlands, by contrast, workers have a right to decrease their working time and employ-
ers must justify the refusal of requests to reduce working time. What is more, discrimina-
tion between workers based on work hours is prohibited, so that those who opt for
part-time work are guaranteed equal treatment with regard to wages and other benefits.
Meanwhile, a high legal age of retirement incentivises Dutch workers to not retire early.5
As a result, average working time during middle age is much lower in the Netherlands
than in Japan, at 1433 hours per year, and workers retire later at the average age of 67. The
Netherlands are thus closer to the frontloading end of the spectrum, whereas Japan is
closer to postponement (Boulin, 2006; European Commission, 2020).6
The existence of a variety of free time regimes raises the thus far unexplored question
of whether some points on the spectrum between frontloading and postponement are pref-
erable to others, morally speaking. How should a just society structure the costs that
individuals face when they want to access free time at middle and old age? My main
claim is that justice requires contemporary societies, all of which have regimes that are
relatively close to postponement, to move to a point that is closer to frontloading. This
means that the distribution of opportunities to access free time at different life stages in
the Netherlands is preferable to that of Japan. Beyond that, I claim that even countries like
the Netherlands should move further towards frontloading and make access to free time
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