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Capitals and the use of time 75

more specifically about the distribution and changing nature of social capital
in Britain, drawing to some extent on the data in the British Household Panel
Survey. Third, I explore some of the more complex dynamics in the relation-
ships between economic, cultural and social capital in the reproduction of
advantage in schooling, drawing on the work of Devine (2004) in particular. It
is important to emphasize that other areas of research could have been con-
sidered for analysis in this chapter, but that those that are discussed show the
significance of social and cultural change and allow further building blocks to
be erected in the argument concerning how people belong and distinguish
themselves is societies that are increasingly centred around performing and
audiencing.

Time use

There is distinctive and specialist attention to the use of time in contemporary
societies and over a long-run period that is informed by a number of discip-
lines. I will not enter into this extensive literature in any depth, as my point is
to consider some of the most significant issues that it raises and what might be
seen as the state of the art of findings about how we use our time. A very
helpful discussion of these areas can be found in the work of Gershuny (2000). I
will only address some key aspects of this book, as they help me move forward
the general arguments that I am making.
Gershuny argues that there are three main trends or what he calls con-
vergences in the use of time in industrial/postindustrial societies, based on an
extensive review of the literature. These trends provide an overall picture of
how time is deployed within and across societies. Gershuny explores the rela-
tionship between the use of time across three activities: paid work, unpaid
work and leisure/consumption. He says that there is fourth category – sleep –
but that this can be seen as residual as it is activity which ‘for any social group,
to within very few minutes per day [is] a constant over historical time’ (p. 5).
The three convergences are with respect national, gender and status groups.
First, nations are over time becoming more alike in the balance between
paid and unpaid work:

We find over the developed countries in the latter half of the twenti-
eth century there appears to be an approximately constant balance
between the totals of paid and unpaid work in a society (generally
around 55 per cent paid, 45 per cent). The twenty countries we shall be
discussing in this book show overall a general increase in leisure (i.e. a
decline in the total of paid plus unpaid work), though some of the richer
countries, towards the end of the century, show a small decline in leisure
time.
(Gershuny 2000: 5)

Second, he points to a process of gender difference and convergence for
all the countries for which the evidence is reviewed:
Women in each country, and throughout the period, do on average
much more domestic work and much less paid work, than men, and the