1. Introduction
Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the ‘administrative burden’, ‘inconvenience’ and ‘sludge’ that individuals encounter in obtaining healthcare, accessing public programmes and benefits, and securing legal licences and statuses. Such ‘hassle costs’ are the products, directly or indirectly, of institutional and policy design choices. This raises questions about whether and to what extent these costs ought to be reduced, and more broadly, about when their imposition is justifiable, and what considerations are relevant to such assessments (Emens Reference Emens2015; Olken Reference Olken2016; Eyal et al. Reference Eyal, Romain and Robertson2018; Herd and Moynihan Reference Herd and Moynihan2018; Sunstein Reference Sunstein2019).
One argument for their imposition is that non-monetary costs may effectively function as rationing devices, targeting scarce resources to those who need or will use them the most. The idea is that such ‘ordeals’ may serve to sort potential recipients, because whether one is willing to bear an ordeal may indicate how much one will benefit from a good or service (Nichols and Zeckhauser Reference Nichols and Zeckhauser1982).
Moreover, as recent research in development economics has demonstrated, targeting with non-monetary costs may be more effective than alternative provision methods. Pascaline Dupas et al. (Reference Dupas, Hoffmann, Kremer and Zwane2016) for instance, compared arrangements in which chlorine solution to treat water for disease prevention was distributed freely to households, could be purchased directly for a small monetary fee, or could be obtained by redeeming a voucher at a nearby store. Relative to free provision, the monetary cost did reduce the portion of households using chlorine, while the non-monetary cost did not, though it did reduce the portion with unused chlorine. In this case, targeting by ordeal improved targeting efficiency relative to alternative provision methods, producing fewer errors of both inclusion and exclusion.
Yet, while ordeals may sometimes be effective mechanisms for targeting social resources, whether rationing through inconvenience is a justifiable or desirable instrument of social policy depends on assessing more than just its targeting efficiency. The assessment of whether a particular ordeal is, all things considered, a justifiable method for providing basic goods and services requires giving proper weight to a wider array of factors. These considerations include, in addition to an ordeal’s targeting effects, the burdens that the process of navigating an ordeal itself imposes and the distributive implications of these process-related burdens.
I here highlight one such burdensome effect and its distributive implications: how ordeals that levy time costs reduce and constrain free time, and how such time costs may thereby create, deepen and compound disadvantages.
Time-cost ordeals may, all things considered, be a justifiable and desirable way of targeting scarce social resources. But to justify using time costs as a means of targeting requires, beyond assessing whether doing so is effective, evaluating the process-related burdens they impose. In this paper I argue that any such evaluation must recognize and give due weight to the loss of free time and its associated distributive consequences.
Section 2 sets out a framework of normative considerations relevant to the assessment of rationing by ordeal. Section 3 shows how time-cost ordeals to obtain basic goods and services reduce and constrain free time, a valuable resource to which citizens have legitimate claims. Section 4 examines further effects of time-cost ordeals that limit free time, namely that they may impair abilities to meet other needs and obligations, reduce access to shared free time and thereby may restrict opportunities to participate in social and associational life, and may also undermine social and political equality. Section 5 concludes by suggesting three practical considerations that generally apply in favour of alternative provision methods over rationing with time costs.
2. A framework of normative considerations
The process of obtaining basic goods and services and other legal entitlements may be experienced primarily as an attempt to navigate and overcome hurdles. Administrative burdens and inconveniences are commonly encountered in the USA, for instance, in: obtaining healthcare (medical treatment; health insurance; coverage of treatment); accessing public benefits and programmes (nutrition, housing, transportation subsidies; financial assistance; disability benefits; unemployment insurance, job training); obtaining educational resources for oneself or one’s children (school enrolment; disability accommodations; financial aid); and securing licences and legal statuses (driving licences; identity documents; voter registration; immigration statuses) (see Emens Reference Emens2015; Herd and Moynihan Reference Herd and Moynihan2018).
These hurdles, in addition to the financial costs they may entail, impose non-monetary time and effort costs on those navigating them. Potential claimants must spend time and effort (or use bandwidth, see Mullainathan and Shafir Reference Mullainathan and Shafir2013: 41–42) to learn about the programmes and eligibility requirements, fill out forms and obtain documentation, wait in line and speak with service representatives, travel to service and office locations, and so forth. And as indicated by Nichols and Zeckhauser’s recognition that ‘demeaning qualification tests and tedious administrative procedures’ (Reference Nichols and Zeckhauser1982: 376) might serve as sorting devices, these hurdles may also involve tolerating experiences ranging from mildly unpleasant and irritating tasks to disrespectful treatment and frustrating, intrusive and degrading procedures. These experience costs might also include waiting through a time-lag or delay to obtain a good or service (e.g. donor waiting lists, naturalization waiting periods, benefit eligibility delays). (For overviews of these non-monetary costs, see Emens Reference Emens2015: 1419–1422; Eyal et al. Reference Eyal, Romain and Robertson2018: 12, 18; Herd and Moynihan Reference Herd and Moynihan2018: 22–9; Sunstein Reference Sunstein2019: 1853.)Footnote 1
Whether and to what extent attempts to obtain basic goods and services and legal entitlements are marked by these various non-monetary costs is the product, either directly or indirectly, of institutional arrangements and policy choices.Footnote 2 And given that these institutional and policy choices – in particular programme design and implementation and agency capacity and resources – are open to evaluation and change, it is essential to examine whether, all things considered, such ordeals are justifiable.
Three considerations are central to such assessments:
(i) Effects on access and their distributive implications. Whether an administrative burden or inconvenience is intentionally designed as a targeting mechanism or not, if such an ordeal shapes who has access to and makes use of social resources, it ought to be evaluated for these targeting effects. This requires assessing its effects on errors of inclusion, i.e. whether it provides a good to those who are not eligible, do not need it, will not use it, or do not value it sufficiently highly, and its effects on errors of exclusion, i.e. whether it deters or blocks access for those in the reverse positions (type I and type II errors). Assessments of targeting efficiency unavoidably depend on normative judgements about how such errors ought to be specified, how these errors ought to be weighed, and how to evaluate inclusion of those near the threshold. Most plainly, judgements must be made about whether it is more important that all who need a good obtain it, minimizing unmet needs and unrealized claims, or that only those who need it obtain a good, minimizing waste and false claims (Atkinson Reference Atkinson, van de Walle and Nead1995: 30, 35; citing Weisbrod Reference Weisbrod, Haveman and Margolis1970: 125; see also Goodin Reference Goodin1985; Sunstein Reference Sunstein2019: 1865–1868).
Moreover, an ordeal ought to be assessed not solely in terms of its overall inclusion and exclusion effects, but in terms of which members of society are included and excluded – the distributive effects of targeting. As a result of material, social and personal circumstances, people are differentially able to pay and bear an ordeal’s various non-monetary costs, and these differences are likely to interact with a society’s broader patterns of advantage and disadvantage. It is possible that ordeals may mitigate inequalities, providing the disadvantaged with greater access than alternative methods, but it is also possible that they may compound inequalities, further limiting the disadvantaged’s access to basic goods and services and other legal entitlements (Gupta Reference Gupta2017; Eyal et al. Reference Eyal, Romain and Robertson2018: 15–16; Herd and Moynihan Reference Herd and Moynihan2018: 6–8; Sunstein Reference Sunstein2019: 1859, 1872; see also Roberts Reference Roberts2018).
(ii) Process-related burdens imposed and their distributive implications. Though the first consideration addresses an important set of concerns, it does not directly address another important set of concerns that must be included in any full normative evaluation. That is, it is necessary to assess not only how an ordeal affects access to a good or entitlement, but also the process-related burdens an ordeal imposes on those attempting to acquire a good or entitlement. If an ordeal is envisioned as a thicket of hassles that one must find a way through to obtain a social resource, the first consideration assesses whether this thicket deters, reduces or blocks people’s access to the resource. The second consideration, by contrast, focuses not on whether people make it through the thicket, but on the burdens that people bear while attempting to navigate it – the lost time, the expended efforts, the injuries and frustrations. These process-related burdens, apart from their effects on access, are themselves objects of normative concern. Further, these burdens too must be assessed for their distributive effects. While they may counteract a society’s existing patterns of disadvantage, they may also cause, worsen or compound insufficiencies and inequalities.
(iii) Alternative provision methods. Any assessment of whether an ordeal is justifiable must also compare that particular provision method to the range of possible alternatives under different institutional arrangements and policy designs. The breadth of relevant possibilities may vary with the conditions and scope of normative evaluation; for instance, if the ordeal is subject to evaluation at the local or sectoral level the alternatives may be more circumscribed than at the societal or even global level.Footnote 3 That said, in general terms, rationing with a particular ordeal ought to be compared, in addition to alternative ordeal designs, to provision instead universally or categorically (e.g. to all citizens, or all those under or over a certain age); on the basis of means-tested eligibility (with minimized qualification burdens); through the market or with monetary costs; or with direct rationing (e.g. committee decision, lottery).
These three considerations are fundamental to any normative evaluation of whether an ordeal, or pattern of ordeals, is justifiable. To be sure, though these three considerations are essential to any evaluation, they do not comprise an exhaustive set, as different frameworks of evaluation may draw on additional considerations as well. An assessment might also, for instance, evaluate whether an ordeal strengthens or undermines public support and commitment to the programme or benefit over time, and more generally how it affects people’s experiences with and attitudes toward a profession, an agency or the government (Sen Reference Sen, van de Walle and Nead1995: 14, 21; Herd and Moynihan Reference Herd and Moynihan2018: 29–30; see also Soss Reference Soss1999; Campbell Reference Campbell2003; Mettler Reference Mettler2005).
Within this framework of normative considerations, the focus here is to examine specifically time-cost ordeals and the process-related burdens they impose and these burdens’ distributive implications (the second consideration).Footnote 4 Ordeals’ time costs have been rightfully assessed with respect to their effects on access (the first consideration) (Olken Reference Olken2016; Eyal et al. Reference Eyal, Romain and Robertson2018: 15–17; Sunstein Reference Sunstein2019: 1872; see also Roberts Reference Roberts2018: 1048, 1059). In favour of ordeals, it is argued that time costs may produce fewer errors of exclusion than monetary costs if those who are poorer can more readily spend time than pay a financial cost. Yet, it is also aptly recognized that time costs may produce errors of exclusion if those who need a good in fact have little time at their disposal to devote to overcoming the ordeal.Footnote 5
The targeting effects of time costs are indeed important factors to consider, but the process-related burdens time-cost ordeals impose – beyond their effects on access – are also essential to consider in any normative evaluation of an ordeal’s justifiability. Less attention has been given to examining the burdens imposed by time-cost ordeals, and moreover the distributive implications of these burdens.Footnote 6 As such, the focus here is to highlight how the process of navigating time-cost ordeals imposes burdens, in particular by reducing and constraining free time, and how these process-related burdens may create, deepen and compound disadvantages.
3. Reduced and constrained free time
First and most fundamentally, time-cost ordeals to obtain basic goods and services reduce and constrain free time, and free time is a valuable resource to which people have legitimate claims. Free time – that is, time not consumed by meeting the necessities of life – is an all-purpose resource that people generally require for the pursuit of their ends, whatever those ends may be. To pursue any end other than meeting the necessities of life, one must have some amount of free time. The resource of free time, so understood, may be defined more precisely as time not committed to meeting one’s own, or one’s dependents’, basic needs, whether with necessary paid work, household labour or personal care (Rose Reference Rose2016: 40–45, 58–60).
Ordeals that require one to pay time costs to obtain basic goods and services, i.e. those that enable one to function at a basic level in one’s society, effectively inflate the time one must spend meeting the necessities of life for oneself or one’s family members. Compared with provision methods that minimize time costs, methods that impose time costs beyond those that are essential to a good’s provision affect free time in two primary ways. First, time-cost ordeals reduce one’s free time by requiring one to spend a greater amount of time to meet basic needs. Second, time-cost ordeals can constrain one’s free time by requiring one to engage in tasks at particular times or at particular intervals to meet basic needs, and further, these constraints might require one to coordinate one’s time with others.
The total amount of time one spends, for instance, to obtain insurance coverage for medical treatment filling out long complex forms, waiting on hold, travelling to the hospital’s financial assistance office to submit documentation, speaking with service representatives, sorting out statements, and so forth reduces one’s free time. One’s free time is, moreover, constrained if, for instance, the service representatives and financial assistance office are only available during certain hours, or if one must wait to receive multiple statements, fill out a claims form before calling a service representative, but must call before the window for making claims has closed, etc. And navigating these ordeals might require one to coordinate with others, for instance, with one’s employer to leave work early to make it to the benefits office in time, or with a friend to watch one’s children to find time to wade through paperwork.
The extent to which a time-cost ordeal reduces and constrains one’s free time compared with time cost minimizing provision methods of course depends on how much time it requires and how greatly it constrains one’s time, as well as how frequently one faces the ordeal. Furthermore, if individuals or groups are likely to face multiple time-cost ordeals to obtain basic goods and services, an ordeal’s impact on free time ought to be evaluated as part of this broader potential pattern. If those with low incomes, for instance, have to pay a time cost with each attempt to access a different specific programme – to obtain insurance coverage for each medical service, as well as financial assistance, nutrition assistance, monthly rent subsidy and public transportation discount, educational and job training resources, and so forth – such that the receipt of every benefit comes with a time tax, these time costs together are significantly more onerous and ought to be evaluated in this broader context.
To reduce and constrain claimants’ free time is to diminish their shares of a valuable resource. The pursuit of one’s projects and commitments, whatever they may be, generally depends on having the free time available for these ends, whether to gather with family and friends, join in community life, participate in politics, take advantage of educational and cultural opportunities, undertake a productive or creative endeavour, take part in religious practice, engage in a hobby or sport, or any other end. As such, to have time that one can devote to one’s chosen pursuits, whatever they may be, one generally must have time not consumed by meeting the necessities of life. To have reduced and constrained free time is to have less of this necessary resource for the pursuit of one’s ends (Rose Reference Rose2016: 1–4, 40–45; see also Goodin et al. Reference Goodin, Rice, Parpo and Eriksson2008: 3–4, 27–34). Accordingly, those bearing time-cost ordeals to obtain basic goods and services bear the loss of a valuable resource.
Further, not only is free time a valuable resource, but citizens have legitimate claims to fair shares of free time. Citizens’ claims to free time are grounded in the widely endorsed principle that citizens have legitimate claims to fair shares of the resources that are generally required to exercise their liberties and opportunities. This principle reflects a foundational commitment of liberal egalitarian theories of justice to ensure that citizens possess the means to take advantage of their formally guaranteed liberties and opportunities, and more generally to pursue their projects and commitments. Without the means to exercise them, citizens’ liberties and opportunities would be of little worth, enjoyed in name only (Rose Reference Rose2016: 66–73).Footnote 7
This principle is standardly relied upon to ground citizens’ claims to the resources of income and wealth, but it also grounds claims to the resource of free time. To exercise one’s right to vote, to participate in a town meeting, or to join in a protest, one must have not only the means to travel to the polls, the town hall and the public square, one must also have the free time to exercise these liberties. This same point applies not only to the political liberties, but to the full range of essential liberties and opportunities, and indeed to the enjoyment of almost any of one’s formally guaranteed freedoms. Thus, given the foundational commitment to ensuring that citizens have a fair share of the resources that are generally required to exercise their liberties and opportunities, citizens have legitimate claims to a fair share of free time.Footnote 8 This claim entails having a fair amount of free time, as well as to possessing this free time on conditions that allow for its effective use, in particular with sufficient discretion over when one’s free time occurs, or with access to free time on a predictable schedule and in periods of sufficient duration (Rose Reference Rose2016: 1–6, 66–74, 135–144; see also Alperovitz Reference Alperovitz2005: 38–41; Arnold Reference Arnold2017: 222–223; Neufeld Reference Neufeld2017: 78–79; for historical antecedents of this argument, see Hunnicutt Reference Hunnicutt2013: 1–94; Gourevitch Reference Gourevitch2015: 126–132, 144–145).Footnote 9
Thus, time-cost ordeals targeting the provision of basic goods and services, compared with provision methods that minimize time costs, reduce and constrain claimants’ free time, limiting their shares of a valuable resource to which they have legitimate claims. Importantly, this burdensome effect also has distributive implications. Depending on the extent of an ordeal or pattern of ordeals, and existing shares of free time, the burdens imposed by time-cost ordeals may create or exacerbate inadequate or unequal shares of free time. Further, depending on how time-cost ordeals interact with existing patterns of social advantage and disadvantage more broadly, the burdens they impose may also compound disadvantages.Footnote 10
For those with little free time, time-cost ordeals are disproportionately burdensome.Footnote 11 If free time is valued only in monetary terms, as a good that is fungible with earnings, time-cost ordeals appear to be relatively more costly for high earners, because their time has a higher opportunity cost in terms of forgone earnings.Footnote 12 Yet, when free time is recognized as itself a valuable resource to which people have distinct claims, it is apparent that on these terms navigating an ordeal is relatively more costly for those with little free time. Akin to how a uniform tax rate is disproportionately burdensome for those who are poor, as it taxes a greater proportion of their necessary incomes, a uniform time-cost ordeal is disproportionately burdensome for those who are time-poor, consuming a greater proportion of their free time.
Moreover, given that time-cost ordeals are disproportionately burdensome for those with little free time, if those who are socially disadvantaged on other dimensions are also more likely to have limited and constrained free time, the burdens imposed by time-cost ordeals may compound disadvantages. Low-wage workers, most plainly, must work longer hours to earn a decent living. Low-wage workers in the USA are also disproportionately likely to have non-standard and unpredictable work schedules, and to have less control and flexibility over their work hours (Gerstel and Clawson Reference Gerstel and Clawson2015: 1096–1097; Reference Gerstel and Clawson2018: 82). Almost half of all private sector employees in the lowest wage quartile do not receive any paid vacation days or holidays, and those in the lowest wage quartile have fewer than one-third the number of vacation days as those in the highest wage quartile (Maye Reference Maye2019). Further, in addition to persistent racial and gender wage gaps (Patten Reference Patten2016), there are disparities in constraints on free time. Women and black employees have less access to flexible work scheduling (Golden Reference Golden2008), and workers who are black are disproportionately likely to have non-standard work schedules (Presser Reference Presser2003: 51).
Time-cost ordeals may also compound disadvantages if those who are socially disadvantaged on other dimensions are more likely to bear more and more time-consuming ordeals. It is the least advantaged Americans, Herd and Moynihan argue, who tend to face more and more time-consuming administrative burdens, because those who are poor face ordeals in applying to a number of specific programmes, and because programmes that are targeted toward poor people tend to have the greatest burdens (Reference Herd and Moynihan2018: 6–8, 18). Additionally, in some cases there are disparities in how much time an ordeal imposes, who bears ordeals, and what ordeals one faces based on race, gender and gender identity (Emens Reference Emens2015: 1433–38, 1429; Eyal et al. Reference Eyal, Romain and Robertson2018: 16).
4. Further effects on opportunities and political and social equality
The central burden that time-cost ordeals to obtain basic goods and services impose – expanding the time that must be spent to meet the necessities of life, thereby reducing and constraining free time – may also have a range of further effects. First, for those who have little or highly circumscribed free time – whether because they must work long hours, have inflexible or unpredictable work schedules, and/or have time-consuming caregiving obligations or disabilities – increasing and constraining the time they must put into necessary tasks may impair their ability to meet their other needs and obligations. While those who face extensive time-cost ordeals may successfully navigate their burdens, if their time is already greatly consumed by necessity, doing so may come at the cost of time to take care of themselves or their dependents, or – and especially for low-wage workers who are more likely to have inflexible schedules and little or no paid time off – may risk their ability to keep their jobs (Emens Reference Emens2015: 1447–1448).
Further, by reducing and constraining one’s free time, time-cost ordeals effectively limit one’s access to periods of shared free time, and thereby may limit one’s opportunities to engage in associational pursuits. Engaging in pursuits with others generally requires sharing free time together. Bearing time costs, and doing so under particular time constraints, may diminish one’s opportunities to participate in gatherings with friends and family, in collective religious practices, in community or political association meetings, in shared recreational pursuits, and so forth. And, as with free time itself, not only is shared free time a valuable resource, it is a generally required resource for the exercise of associational liberties, and as such citizens also have legitimate claims to reasonable access to sufficient periods of shared free time (Rose Reference Rose2016: 93–111; on the importance more broadly of coordinating time, see Rakoff Reference Rakoff2002).
Whether an ordeal, or pattern of ordeals, does effectively limit one’s opportunity to engage in associational pursuits depends on how extensively it reduces and constrains one’s access to shared free time, as well as one’s existing access to this resource. It is not difficult, however, to see how associational opportunities may be limited if, for instance, seriously ill people or their partners attempting to obtain medical treatment and insurance coverage, parents of children with disabilities attempting to secure resources and accommodation, or people with low incomes attempting to access multiple specific programmes and benefits must spend considerable amounts of time navigating various ordeals.Footnote 13 If, additionally, those facing such time-cost ordeals have limited access to shared free time to start, the ordeals may exacerbate this disadvantage.
Moreover, and following from the prior considerations, if time-cost ordeals cause or worsen inadequacies or inequalities of free time, or compound existing disadvantages, this may have further detrimental effects on political and social equality. If, for instance, those with low incomes must engage in multiple time-consuming ordeals to obtain basic goods and services, and as a result have reduced and constrained free time, they may thereby have diminished opportunities to exercise their political liberties and more broadly participate in civic and political life. Additionally, apart from whatever demeaning treatment ordeals may entail, if time-cost ordeals impair people’s abilities to meet their needs and obligations and diminish their opportunities to participate in shared or common experiences, this may perpetuate patterns of social exclusion and undermine social equality (Anderson Reference Anderson1999: 316–321; Wolff Reference Wolff and Hull2015: 24–31; Rose Reference Rose2017: 118–120).Footnote 14
5. Practical considerations against rationing with time costs
The third central consideration to assessing an ordeal’s justifiability is how it compares to alternative provision methods, and in particular how it fares with respect to the first two considerations – its effects on access and the process-related burdens it imposes. While any such comparative assessment depends on a circumstance-specific empirical evaluation, there are, I suggest, three practical considerations that tell against rationing with time-cost ordeals. These considerations provide reasons – to be weighed in a full normative and empirical assessment – in favour of instead providing resources universally or categorically, on the basis of means-tested eligibility (with minimized qualification burdens), with proportionally or progressively scaled monetary costs, or through some other mechanism (e.g. lottery).
First, information about potential claimants’ shares of free time is less readily available than information about their shares of income and wealth. Public agencies collect information about earnings and assets, primarily through taxation, and could make use of and potentially share this information (with appropriate regard for privacy and security) to determine eligibility and minimize claimants’ burdens (e.g. with auto-enrolment or prepopulated forms) (Sunstein Reference Sunstein2019: 1869–1870, 1882). But public agencies do not currently have similar access to information about how much free time people in different relevant circumstances have, taking account not only income and wealth, but also work schedules and commutes, and necessary household labour, personal care and caregiving. While better information ought to be collected to measure how much free time people have (consistent with feasibility constraints of doing so non-invasively and efficiently), this information is at present not as readily available, limiting the ability to design time-cost ordeals that do not result in errors of exclusion or impose disproportionate burdens.Footnote 15
Second, given these informational limitations and other logistical constraints, it is likely to be significantly more difficult to reliably implement scaled time costs than scaled monetary costs.Footnote 16 Costs that are proportionally or progressively scaled to an individual’s resources may address both errors of exclusion and disproportionate burdens. Yet it is likely to be difficult to tailor time costs to individual circumstances, as is well illustrated by imagining the complexities involved in instituting a scaled waiting or paperwork time ordeal. This would require, in addition to information about potential claimants’ shares of free time, implementing a mechanism such that the time-poor, for instance, only have to wait for five minutes or fill out a short form, while those who are not time-poor have to wait one hour and fill out long forms. While it may be possible to roughly scale time costs (for instance, by locating more and better-staffed service locations in neighbourhoods with more time-poor residents, or by waiving a requirement to visit a service location for residents of rural areas), in general it is likely more feasible to reliably scale monetary costs.
Third, it is not possible to refund time spent, and monetary compensation is an imperfect substitute. Refunds may be an effective targeting mechanism: one’s willingness to bear a cost upfront and wait for a refund may indicate one’s need for or expected use of a good or service. (Of course, this mechanism must be assessed on the basis of the same considerations as other ordeals, as, depending on how a refund is administered, it may also impose process-related burdens and produce errors of exclusion if the circumstances of those in need limit their means to bear the initial cost.) Yet, unlike the fungible resource of money, the time one has spent navigating a time-consuming ordeal cannot be refunded; that time is past. While the time itself cannot be replaced, an attempt may be made to compensate for its loss with money. However, although one may be able to use a monetary payment to obtain future free time, depending on the constraints one faces, one may not be readily able to covert money into time. If, for instance, those who spent five hours bearing a time-cost ordeal were compensated with that time’s monetary equivalent, they may have limited abilities to redeem that money for free time if, in addition to any non-pecuniary transaction costs involved, their opportunities to hire the fulfilment of their caregiving obligations are constrained, or if their work schedules do not allow for ‘purchasing’ those hours off.Footnote 17 (On the limitations of compensation, see Wolff and de-Shalit Reference Wolff and de-Shalit2007: 24–31; on the imperfect substitutability of money and time, see Rose Reference Rose2016: 74–89).
Though these practical considerations generally weigh against targeting with time costs, nonetheless, in some instances a time-cost ordeal may, all things considered, be a justifiable and even desirable means of allocating scarce social resources. As the argument here has emphasized, however, making such an assessment requires taking account not only of an ordeal’s effects on access, but also the process-related burdens an ordeal imposes on those who attempt to navigate it. To this end, any normative evaluation of the use of a time-cost ordeal to target basic goods and services must not overlook or underweight the central burden it imposes – reduced and constrained free time – and this burden’s further effects and distributive implications.
Acknowledgements
Previous versions of this paper were presented at Harvard University at a panel at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics 30th Anniversary Conference in May 2017 and at the Workshop on Ordeals in Healthcare in May 2018, organized by Nir Eyal and Anders Herlitz. I am grateful to them and to those participating in these events for their comments, as well as to Herschel Nachlis, Lucas Swaine and the journal’s two reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments.
Julie L. Rose is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. Her research focuses on issues of economic, distributive and social justice. She is the author of Free Time (Princeton University Press, 2016), and her work has appeared in The Journal of Political Philosophy, Law, Ethics and Philosophy, Political Studies and Politics, Philosophy and Economics. URL: https://govt.dartmouth.edu/people/julie-l-rose
