After decades of social and economic research devoted to the topic of money, the time has come to explore new variables such as the use of available time. Time is a scarce resource that each individual employs differently and understanding how much of this diversity is voluntary or compulsory may indicate new directions for the future.

Nowadays any reflection on employment and work time must acknowledge the realities of a social and economic crisis which is driving a forced redistribution between hours of paid and unpaid work and a shift in the balance of relations between the buyers and sellers of time.

This publication, which draws on a series of lectures the author delivered in the BBVA Foundation, examines time as a key determinant of the social and economic organization of today’s developed societies.

Readers with an interest in statistics and social sciences will find in Tiempo de vida y tiempo de trabajo an enlarged, updated version of this talk, complete with extensive documentation on use of time surveys conducted by the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat), the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), the National Statistics Office (INE), the Basque Statistics Office (EUSTAT) and the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS), which runs through the methodological advances of recent years in this wide-ranging research field.