Who we are
The Time Use Initiative (TUI) is the main non-profit organisation promoting the right to time all over the world. Its main objective is to encourage public discussion on how we collectively organise our time, seen as a way to improve citizen’s well-being through innovative time policies.
The right to time advocates to rethink and rebalance the current distribution of time, based on the 8-hours triangle (8 hours for resting, 8 hours for working, and 8 hours for leisure), that does not fully respond to our societies’ needs — as it does not account for care time and commuting time. Time policies are a tool that allow finding a new life balance with time for work, time for rest, time for care, and time for leisure.
The TUI aims to improve social time organisation as a key element for progress and achieve the following benefits:
Health
Better align our social rhythms to our biological rhythms, and improve sleep and rest, while decreasing the effect of health issues linked to a misalignment of our circadian rhythms such as cardiovascular diseases, mental health issues, diabetes or obesity, amongst others. Our societies live a structural sleep deprivation due to a myriad of factors, which has been estimated to cause a loss of 1 to 2% of national GDP.
Equality
Decrease existing inequalities on the use of time due to gender imbalances on the distribution of tasks, social class imbalances and other factors such as race or age. Specifically, time policies should aim to end time poverty (lack of time for one-self), which affects between 20 to 30% of the population, depending on the country, and is more acute amongst women.
Efficiency
Improve efficiency both in organisations and in education, by aligning work and school schedules with people’s needs and their circadian rhythms, and adapting them to the challenges posed by new forms of work that are replacing the traditional industrial work schedule, such as teleworking, irregular working times, night work, digitalisation, or others. From an education point of view, time policies should support the adaptation of school schedules to the specificities of the circadian rhythms of children and teenagers, as well as, to the needs of their carers.
Sustainability
Ensure that cities and regions adapt their urban landscape for it to be more resilient and reduce their carbon footprint through mobility, energy, and urbanism policies. Such a shift should create proximity neighbourhoods where basic needs are met, both in terms of services and products. By doing so, they also allow planning territories adapted to natural paces, both in terms of resource regeneration and sustainable living.
Democracy
Facilitate civic participation of all citizens by providing the time to dedicate to civic and democratic engagement, thus enriching our societies by including more voices in the public discussion. With a higher number of people suffering from time poverty and a great number of citizens not being able to find spaces for public discussion, innovative policies that tackle such issues are needed. In a polarised world, spaces that facilitate participation in common issues, solving collective problems using dialogue and negotiation, can be found when time is put at the centre of the agenda.
More information on TUI's structure and organisation
Time experts
The TUI works with a global set of experts, who aim to advising the organisation in its multiple projects. As time is a cross-sectoral theme, it needs to be dealt with interdisciplinarity. Due to multi-level policies that need to be implemented, such experts also represent a diversity of regional, national, and international backgrounds.
Staff
The TUI has a committed, full-time staff working in its different projects. Due to the net methodology of the Initiative, there are also some people with different backgrounds that work with specific projects according to their fields of expertise.
