POSTINDUSTRIAL CONVERGENCE IN TIME ALLOCATION

Developed societies, it is argued, are in a number of respects, and fo r very clear reasons, becoming more similar to each other in their pat terns of daily life. This article shows, using time budget evidence, a rather striking multinational convergence in the broad balance betwee n leisure and work. But first it introduces a model of development, on e specifically connected with the historical evolution of time use, a model that takes labour (and consumption) time as its central variable s, but which owes more to Thorstein Veblen than to Karl Marx.