Exploring the Coexistence Between New Quality Productive Force Developments, Human Capital Level Improvements and Time Poverty from a Time Utilization Perspective

Qiyan Wang and Zhixian Du ()
Additional contact information
Qiyan Wang: Leisure Economy Research Center, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
Zhixian Du: School of Statistics, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 3, 1-25

Abstract: The development of new quality productive forces and the improvement of human capital have significantly improved people’s material and spiritual living standards. However, this has not brought people time affluence. Time poverty is related to lower happiness and physical health, and should be of concern. This paper theoretically analyzes the relationship among new quality productive forces, human capital level and time poverty, and conducts an empirical study based on the data from the Residents’ Life Time Allocation Survey from 2006 to 2021. The results show that more than 40% of individuals feel time poverty. Under the combined influence of new quality productive forces and human capital level, individual work time is still increasing, while leisure time is decreasing, which has contributed to increased time poverty. Individuals participate in more leisure activities in less leisure time, so they do not fully enjoy their leisure time. Moreover, with the improvement of new quality productive forces and human capital level, individuals are more inclined to participate in cultural appreciation, educating children, amateur learning, etc., activities. These activities are more like the extension of work time, so that people feel that leisure time is dominated. All these effects are significantly different in terms of gender, marital status, occupation, family size and income.

Keywords: new quality productive forces; human capital; time poverty; time use (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/3/930/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/3/930/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:3:p:930-:d:1574766

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().