The Scarcity of Time

It is not a common thing for everyone to be worried about time. How often have we been looking at our watches waiting for the lesson to end or lament about waiting too long for the bus? Without it, our life would probably become a chaotic mess, yet with it, we become too concerned about it such that it becomes a social problem.

The term "scarcity", in Economics, refers to having limited resources, in this case, time. Everyone wants to stretch every second and minute of their lives, either to allow them to live longer, or appreciate something longer or savour something longer, yet sometimes people want to have the meeting end sooner, classes end earlier and the bus come earlier. It is almost human nature that we want everything under the sun, from cars to toys to the latest fashion goods. The fundamental problem of Economics is that there are unlimited wants, but limited resources.

However, what does "time" in itself have to do with Economics? Time is a very important aspect in our lives as it is a measure of how long we spend on something and whether it is worth our time, so as to speak. For example, we could easily chose to walk from point A to point B, but one would say "It is not worth my time" and opts to take the bus. If he does this, he saves time from walking to point B. This demonstrates that, no matter what, we all want to try and optimise our time. People often multitask their work or do everything in their attempt to squeeze an additional few minutes to take a nap. This clearly shows that, time is indeed scarce.

Time is a resource. Companies always push their workers harder to reach time deadlines, or produce more in the same amount of time. For those who take the train, they hope that the train could go faster, just to save some time. It is often said that time is money, and quite obviously in the eyes of many Multinational and Transnational Companies, even small delay in the delivery of goods could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Whenever we spend time doing one thing, we lose that same amount of time that could be spent doing something else. I quote Staffen Linder, who, 40 years ago, quite accurately predicted that "increases in productivity in rich countries would lead not to an increase in leisure but to less free time for average wage-earners." He said:

"The requirement that the yield on time must increase as the level of income rises is a general one; it relates to time spent on all different purposes, including, as we have seen, in making decisions."

What he is trying to say is that, as the level of income rises, so does the value of our time. In the past, it is probably acceptable that people type, say, 500 words in half an hour. However, in the current era, someone typing 500 words in half an hour would be fired. What Linder accurately predicted was that, with a greater demand for output to satisfy the needs (yes, even teachers' homework) increases, so does the value of time and the scarcer it becomes.

I am quite sure that every student out there wants less homework. Even though we have computers and other aids to assist our speed of finishing it, I requote, "increases in productivity in rich countries would lead not to an increase in leisure but to less free time for average wage-earners." Because our productivity has increased, as students, our leisure has not. We still have to do more in the same time period, or even more in a longer time period, resulting in less free time for us. Time is a scarcity, but yet we are spending more and more on it meeting the needs of others' and henceforth sacrifacing it for having it as "ours".

I am not saying that we should ignore our homework (I know you all would love that), but I want to conclude by quoting Seneca, who lived from 5 BC to 65 AD, with this very meaningful line. It essentially summerises that, as time is a precious resource and is very, very scarce, we must make most and greatest use of it.

"One should count each day a separate life."


Jeffrey Ou
5V