Nadia Garcia and Marta Junqué
It’s time to put Right to Time both in Germany and globally
Imagine constantly feeling rushed, juggling work, family, and endless chores without respite. How many readers have experienced this in the past week? This is „time distress“ or „time poverty,“ a phenomenon occurring worldwide, from major cities to small towns.
This article provides an international perspective on the „right to time,“ informed by the Local and Regional Time Network and the Time Use Initiative’s extensive global projects. The Network observes time policies in practice across countries and identifies time struggles as a critical challenge that governments must address to establish the right to time as a fundamental 21st-century entitlement—ensuring sufficient hours for a fulfilling life, beyond mere survival.
The article examines how this right is conceptualized and implemented in various regions, alongside key outcomes from Time Use Week 2025. That event focused on safeguarding time in an AI-driven era, highlighting practical steps for leaders to act.
Time poverty: a global phenomenon of our societies
Although everyone formally has 24 hours a day, time is not neutral; we live within an organised system that determines our schedules, how tasks are distributed, and who has time and who does not. Time structures daily life and shapes both individual and collective well-being. Today, the way societies organise different time spheres—time devoted to paid work, domestic and care work, commuting, leisure, education, or sociopolitical participation, among others—has turned time into a source of inequality and discomfort. Across the world, despite cultural, economic and social differences between countries, a common pattern has emerged: the lack of personal time after meeting basic needs and fulfilling paid, domestic and care responsibilities. This phenomenon, which creates anxiety about “having no time for anything” or “not being able to keep up”, has been conceptualized by the United Nations as time poverty, highlighting that it is a structural problem rather than an individual one.
The data are clear. In Europe, between 20% and 30% of the population experiences time poverty, while in some Latin American countries the figure exceeds 50%. Those in paid employment, and especially women –who combine labour market participation with domestic and care duties–, are the most affected. Time scarcity and time-related distress do not occur in isolation, they are intertwined with major sociodemographic and technological transformations taking place worldwide. Key drivers include globalization; the crises of low birth rates and long-term care (the UN warns that by 2050, 25% of the population will be over 65, increasing the need for specialized care); the double burden faced by most women (active in the labour market while performing the majority of unpaid reproductive work); and rapid advances in artificial intelligence and digitalization, which accelerate the pace of life and blur the boundaries between work time and free time.
The consequences are profound: poorer physical and mental health and sleep, lower productivity and national GDP losses, persistent gender inequalities, and, overall, a lower quality of life. This shared reality across diverse contexts reveals both the challenges of the present and the future, and a significant opportunity to rethink how we use time and how we might reorganize it to improve well-being and citizens’ quality of life.
The right to time as a new twenty-first-century right
In response to global temporal distress, the twenty-first century has seen the emergence of the “right to time”, understood as the real possibility of having and managing one’s time in a balanced and healthy way. Politicising time and dedicating effort to imagining, developing and implementing time policies for citizens is essential. In other words, time policies are the main instrument for guaranteeing the right to time and reducing time poverty. These policies have four core objectives: increasing gender equality, improving productivity, enhancing social and environmental sustainability, and strengthening people’s physical and mental health. They can achieve this by coordinating the various rhythms and schedules of daily life and by redistributing and balancing the time devoted to different daily activities (working, commuting, caring, resting, etc.). Overall, time policies can improve work–life balance, reduce environmental footprints, increase civic and community participation, boost productivity, reinforce gender equality, and contribute to healthier lives.
Although time policies emerged more than 40 years ago—especially strongly in Italy and France in the 1990s—they soon transcended the territories where they originated and expanded worldwide. This internationalisation process has been driven largely by European municipalities and regions, which have been pioneers in both conceptual development and practical implementation. Today, as recognised by the United Nations’ 2025 Istanbul Innovation Days conference, time policies have consolidated their position as a key tool for urban innovation. Their potential to address structural challenges places them at the centre of debates about the cities of the future. This shift has also been confirmed in global forums such as United Nations Women CSW69, which incorporated the right to time among the emerging rights of the twenty-first century and recognised time as a crucial factor of well-being. In recent decades, the debate on time has therefore gained increasing centrality. International institutions, governments and expert networks now widely acknowledge that the use and organisation of time shape essential dimensions of life and, ultimately, collective well-being. In short, the right to time and the policies associated with it are more present than ever in the global public agenda.
Institutional innovation: the Local and Regional Time Network
In contemporary societies, the role of the Local and Regional Time Network is fundamental, especially given that, to date, the most resilient time policies have come from local and regional institutions. The Time Network is the only global network of governments dedicated to time policies, bringing together the administrations that promote and implement them. Since its creation in 2021, the network has continued to grow, a clear indicator of the exponential interest in the right to time and its political application. Today, the Network includes 49 institutions from cities, metropolises and regions around the world –such as Barcelona (Spain), Bogotá (Colombia), Braga (Portugal), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Strasbourg (France), Marmara (Turkey), Milan (Italy), Trikala (Greece), São Paulo (Brazil) or Sosnowiec (Poland) – representing a total of 90 million inhabitants. The German association Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Zeitpolitik is part of the Board of the Network with the objective of expand time policies in Germany and German speaking territories
The Network has shown that the intention to promote the right to time is shared globally, and that different administrations converge in creating new functions, roles and policies that place time at the centre of territorial planning. However, the time policies being adopted and their level of implementation vary according to each territory’s historical trajectory, interests and main needs. In other words, regions share initiatives aimed at guaranteeing the right to time, but they also develop their own. This is because time policies are cross-cutting measures that, as mentioned, are guided by four objectives –greater health, productivity, equality and sustainability– distinct yet interconnected. Therefore, even when sharing a common framework and an innovative vision, political priorities influence the main objective adopted by each territory. Some cities focus on reducing inefficiencies, such as urban congestion; others seek to ease the temporal burden on people who combine paid work with care work; and some explore how to improve well-being by recognising the importance of rest for health and productivity.
The main time policies at the global level
The Time Academy 2025, the training program aimed at Network members, identified the main time policies currently being implemented by local governments. The analysis was organised into several areas of action related to time. The results showed that the most widespread initiatives among Network members are those linked to paid and unpaid working time: business time organisation policies stand out –incorporating practices such as teleworking, flexible scheduling or the reduced working week– and policies aimed at promoting gender equality, equity and co-responsibility in time use are becoming increasingly consolidated. In countries where time policies are still emerging—such as Turkey or Poland—the degree of implementation is more modest, yet the growth potential is significant. The analysis also revealed the implementation of time policies related to sustainable mobility and to services for participation and citizen attention, although to a lesser extent. Finally, there is growing interest in developing future policies related to the management of nighttime schedules—including leisure and nighttime labour—as well as initiatives based on chronobiology and circadian rhythms. Overall, the Time Academy highlighted a rising commitment to time policies across Europe, the Mediterranean and Latin America.
In line with the Academy’s findings, it is worth noting that gender equality departments are the main drivers of time policies. However, it is increasingly common for these policies to be integrated into departments of presidency, urban planning or socio-economic affairs, indicating a process of progressive mainstreaming and institutionalisation. One of the regions where time policies linked to gender equality have gained the most traction is Latin America, where time policies have a more recent trajectory. The most emblematic case is Bogotá, selected as World Capital of Time Policies in 2025, succeeding Strasbourg, Bolzano and Barcelona in previous years and becoming the first Latin American city to receive this recognition. Bogotá has been a pioneer in implementing the Care Blocks system—urban areas offering training, employment opportunities and essential services to caregivers—and, as part of its capital status, it launched an International Forum regarding women’s use of time. In parallel, it is noteworthy that in 2025 the Time Use Initiative signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UN Women for Latin America and the Caribbean, strengthening the role of the right to time within gender equality strategies.
As highlighted by theLocal and Regional Time Agenda, countries and regions with a longer track record in implementing time policies—such as Italy, France or Catalonia—display a broader and more diversified range of time-related initiatives. In general, the most innovative time policies being implemented aim to improve the balance between work, family and personal life; address the climate crisis, social inequalities and mobility challenges in an integrated manner; strengthen and make citizen participation and democratic quality more representative; and govern the night while addressing the complexity of the nighttime ecosystem, among others. This experience shows that time is a deeply cross-cutting element that simultaneously affects multiple areas of public policy. For this reason, its governance requires a holistic approach and a strong institutional mainstreaming. In this regard, it is significant that 29 members of the Network have incorporated the figure of the Time Chief Officer within public administrations, responsible for ensuring the cross-sectoral nature of time policies and placing the right to time at the centre of governance.
The right to time in the era of artificial intelligence
The results of the Time Academy highlighted another shared and growing area of interest among governments regarding time policies: digitalisation and artificial intelligence. Several cities and regions pointed out that digital innovation, data use and the application of AI technologies are priority areas for advancing towards more efficient, participatory and equitable time governance. Digitalisation—and especially the rise of AI—is no longer perceived as a mere technical resource, but as a structural factor capable of redefining both time poverty and the opportunities to reduce it. It is in this context that the eleventh edition of the Time Use Week, titled The Right to Time in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, became a key space to deepen these debates and guide the future of time policies in 2025.
Time Use Week is the international reference event where political institutions, social organisations, companies, researchers and citizens from around the world come together to advance towards a better social organisation of time. This year’s edition, marked by the context of the digital age and the culture of speed—which pushes us to live, produce and consume at an accelerated pace—focused on analysing the challenges and opportunities that digitalisation and artificial intelligence pose for time management. One of the main conclusions was that technology can contribute to improving time use and generating more free time, provided it is applied with social and ethical criteria. Today, however, many innovation processes remain oriented exclusively towards efficiency, overlooking the transformative potential of AI and digital tools to reduce time poverty. For this reason, it is necessary to redefine the intention behind digitalisation and ensure that principles linked to the right to time and social well-being are fully integrated. Cities, particularly, must collect data and design algorithms aimed at improving the time use of those who need it most; efficiency cannot be the only criterion.
During Time Use Week, experts also emphasised that, when faced with the question of how technology will transform our time use, it is essential to understand that alleviating time-related stress is a collective challenge, not simply a technological one. In other words, whether we will have more or less free time in the future does not depend on technology itself, but on the decisions we make as a society. This involves collectively agreeing on how we want to reduce and redistribute working time; developing tools that enable a more efficient and co-responsible distribution of domestic and care work; continuing to promote smart mechanisms that make mobility more coordinated, flexible and high-quality; and opening a debate on how to improve rest and sleep in the digital age. In addition, sociopolitical participation processes must be digitalised to make them more accessible and representative, and significant progress is needed in reducing the digital gap.
As noted above, contemporary societies are immersed in a culture of acceleration—intensified by digitalisation—that generates exhaustion and discomfort. In this context, Time Use Week concluded that to guarantee the right to time and social well-being in the digital era, it is essential to reclaim slowness, rest and the quality of time. The goal is not to do things faster, but to do them better: to incorporate digital diet practices, recover the ability to disconnect and manage time in a more balanced way that aligns with the human rhythm. The event also underscored the importance of consolidating and expanding existing time policies, which have demonstrated positive and tangible impacts on people’s daily lives.
In summary, eradicating time poverty and guaranteeing the right to time in the digital age requires three major lines of action at the global scale: reorienting technological innovation to incorporate temporal well-being, equity and sustainability criteria; expanding and strengthening time policies across more municipalities, institutions and companies; and fostering a deep cultural transformation centred on human rhythm, time quality and the value of rest and personal time.
Conclusions: towards a global right to time in Germany and globally
The right to time has solidified as an emerging 21st-century right and a vital tool for addressing global challenges such as time-related stress and poverty. Cities and regions worldwide—led by the Local and Regional Governments Time Network—demonstrate that time policies can transform daily life by improving well-being, promoting equality, and fostering sustainable technological innovation. Time is a public good requiring collective governance, with the Time Network driving global momentum, institutional innovation, and placing the right to time at the heart of future policies. In the coming months, German cities and associations are encouraged to prioritize time policies and join the Network to enhance welfare both in Germany and globally.
Nadia Garcia und Marta Junqué
TIME Use Initiative und
Sekretariat des Local and Regional TIME Network