National time accounting: The currency of life

Abstract

National Time Accounting (NTA) serves as a necessary complement to traditional economic indicators by measuring well-being through the lens of time allocation and affective experience. Traditional metrics like Gross Domestic Product frequently overlook non-market activities and the subjective quality of life, whereas NTA utilizes the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) and specialized survey modules to capture emotional states during specific daily episodes. A central component of this framework is the U-index, an ordinal metric that quantifies the proportion of time an individual spends in an unpleasant state where negative emotions outweigh positive ones. Empirical evidence demonstrates that these subjective reports correlate with objective neurological and physiological outcomes, validating their use in economic and social policy analysis. Applications of NTA reveal that experienced well-being varies significantly across demographics and activities, with discretionary social interactions yielding lower U-index scores than market labor or household maintenance. International comparisons indicate that global life satisfaction reports can diverge from daily affective reality; for instance, while Americans report higher overall satisfaction than the French, the latter maintain a lower average U-index. Long-term trends suggest that while shifts in time use have improved the experienced well-being of men over several decades, women’s affective experience has remained largely stable due to the structural substitution of domestic labor for market work. – AI-generated abstract.