FREE TIME NORM AS A MEASURE OF SOCIAL WEALTH (CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON)

The aim of the work is to empirically confirm the possibility of using the political and economic category of “free time norm” and public free time included in its structure to assess the level of social wealth. The level of the study covers cross-country comparison based on the ratio of elements of labor activity and free time of employed citizens of a number of countries. The methodological basis of this study is the definition of the free time norm and public free time by means of a mathematical relationship of the elements of productive and unproductive labor time, on the one hand, and the free time of society, on the other hand. Absolute (in hours) and relative (in percent) indicators allow us to establish the amount of labor costs and results in the context of ten social groups. The average annual number of the studied groups is determined based on national statistics, and the duration of the components of labor time and free activity is based on time budget data. The results of the empirical study showed the greatest appropriateness of an up-to-date assessment of social wealth from the position of the ratio of labor and consumption, excluding cost values. The diversity of the compared countries in their progress towards a reduction in the level of real wealth, reflected in the reduction in the share of socially free time as useful for personal development in the formation of human potential, is revealed.