ARC Future Fellowship to tackle the hidden inequality of time

Associate Professor Susanne Röhr from UNSW Sydney’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) has been awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council Future Fellowship to investigate how inequalities in one of our most fundamental resources - time - affect health, wellbeing and ageing.

The four-year project, Understanding temporal inequity and its societal impacts in Australia, will develop the first comprehensive framework and measurement tool to examine how discretionary time is distributed across Australian society and the consequences for individuals, communities and Australia’s ageing population.

In an increasingly time-pressured world, more than one-third of working-age Australians report regularly feeling rushed or pressed for time. Yet having enough time is fundamental to our health and wellbeing - allowing us to rest and recover, exercise, eat well, maintain relationships, care for ourselves and others, and participate in society.

Associate Professor Röhr’s research will investigate what happens when that essential resource is distributed unequally.

“Time poverty is about much more than simply feeling busy,” Associate Professor Röhr said.

“When paid work, commuting, caring and domestic responsibilities leave people with too little discretionary time, it can affect their capacity to look after their health, maintain relationships, participate in their communities and ultimately age well."

“Importantly, these pressures are not experienced equally. This project will give us a way to understand who is most affected, how these inequalities accumulate across the life course and what we can do about them.”

Putting a measure on time inequality

While measures such as income inequality are well established, Australia currently has no national measure showing how discretionary time is distributed across the population or how inequalities in time relate to health and social outcomes.

Associate Professor Röhr’s project will address this gap by developing the Temporal Inequity Measurement Index (TIMI).

Inspired by established measures of inequality such as the Gini coefficient, TIMI will provide a new way of measuring how much discretionary time Australians have, how equitably it is distributed and how those differences relate to wellbeing, workforce participation, healthcare use and ageing.

The interdisciplinary project will combine social theory, national public datasets and policy co-design, bringing together experts, policymakers and people with relevant lived experience.

The research will develop and validate TIMI, investigate how temporal inequity develops and accumulates across the life course, and translate the findings into practical recommendations for work, care and social policy.

The project will ultimately deliver a validated national measure, open data tools and policy guidance that can help governments and other decision-makers identify where time poverty is concentrated and assess whether reforms are making a meaningful difference.

Time as a resource for healthy ageing

For CHeBA, the research also opens an important new perspective on healthy brain ageing and dementia prevention.

Many of the behaviours known to support health as people age - including adequate sleep, regular physical activity, healthy eating, social connection and managing health conditions - require something that is often taken for granted: sufficient time.

By identifying which groups lack this resource, the research could help inform more realistic and equitable approaches to promoting healthy ageing and reducing dementia risk across the population.

CHeBA Co-Directors Professor Perminder Sachdev and Professor Henry Brodaty congratulated Associate Professor Röhr on the Fellowship, describing the award as recognition of both her research leadership and the importance of the emerging field.

“Susanne’s success in securing an ARC Future Fellowship is a tremendous achievement and demonstrates her expertise and her leadership,” Professors Sachdev and Brodaty said.

“Future Fellowships are highly competitive, and this award reflects the excellence and innovation of Susanne’s research as well as her capacity to tackle complex questions with potentially far-reaching benefits for Australian society."

Associate Professor Röhr said the Fellowship provides a unique opportunity to bring the issue of time into discussions about inequality, health and ageing.

“Time is something we all have, but we don’t all have the same freedom over how we use it,” she said.

“By making temporal inequity visible and measurable, we have an opportunity to help shape policies that give more Australians the time and capacity they need not simply to meet their obligations, but to live and age well.”