Conference’s thematic line: 7. Informal sector, popular economy, microfinance and development.
Time banks can be seen as a mechanism to promote social networks and to contribute to the well-being and social relationships in a given community. In this type of popular economy organizations, participants exchange services with other participants using a time-based currency. Regardless the type of service exchanged, all services are equally valued; that is, everyone’s time is worth the same.
The objective of time banks is mainly social, being their basic principles the reciprocity, collaboration, equality and respect among the participants. They allow individuals to afford certain services in the informal sector that would be otherwise unaffordable for them in the traditional market economy, especially in economic recessions. The spread of time banking is a worldwide phenomenon, finding examples both in the North and the South. They have been usually created and managed by local governments, neighborhood associations and social movements.
During the last years, the literature focused on time banks has grown significantly. Most of the papers are based on membership or coordinator surveys (see, for example, Seyfang 2003 and Valor and Papaoikonomou 2016, among others), but there are others that use transaction data (see, for example, Collom 2012 and Carnero et al. 2015, among others).
Our research belongs to the second approach, using transaction records with the objective of testing to which extent time banks are successful at promoting social networks, collaboration and reciprocity. More specifically, we use transactions carried out by about 2700 users enrolled in 66 time banks from 2013 to 2016, mainly in Spain but also in some other Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America. Using more than 15000 exchanges registered in TimeOverflow (a free software designed to manage time banks activity), we calculate some key indicators proposed by Collom (2012) which allow us to analyze time banks in terms of users participation, social network creation and intergenerational exchanges, taking into account nine different service categories: accompaniment, health, housework, administrative tasks, lessons, leisure, consulting, beauty and others. For each active user, we look at the total hours of participation, the account balance of hours exchanged and the evolution of both indicators over time. Furthermore, we analyse the user’s trading network, that is, the number of trading partners, the number of reciprocated contacts (number of two-way exchange partners), the percentage of transactions exchanged with the same user, the percentage of offered vs. demanded exchanged services, as well as the age of both participants in each transaction. This information allows us to test for reciprocity and the existence of intergenerational links as a measure of social capital creation.
Preliminary results show some interesting findings. First, a higher incidence of transactions take place within two service categories: health and lessons. Second, for most users the number of hours spent in offering services is higher than those in demanding services, thus providing evidence of a solidarity behaviour. Third, it is frequent to maintain ties with the same trading partner in several transactions, providing evidence of social network creation. And finally, there is heterogeneity in the incidence of intergenerational exchanges across service categories, being significantly higher in administrative tasks.
Our results can be of interest from different perspectives. On one hand, local governments can design their social policy taking into account the needs of the citizens and promote the spread of this type of popular economy channels to improve the well-being of the community. On the other hand, time bank managers can evaluate the performance of the organization in terms of activity, new users’ enrolment and social capital creation. Finally, our findings can also be relevant for academics interested in social currencies, an issue of growing interest in the literature.
Keywords: Informal sector, popular economy, social capital, social networks, community currency, intergenerational relations.
References:
Carnero, M.A., Martinez, B. and R. Sánchez-Mangas (2015), “Explaining transactions in time banks in economic crisis”, Applied Economics Letters, 22, 739-744.
Collom, E. (2012), “Key Indicators of Time Bank Participation: Using Transaction Data for Evaluation”, International Journal of Community Currency Research, 16, 18-29.
Seyfang, G. (2003), “Growing cohesive communities one favour at a time: Social exclusion, active citizenship and time banks”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27, 699-706.
Valor, C. and Papaoikonomou, E. (2016), “Time banking in Spain: Exploring their structure, management and users’ profile”, Revista Internacional de Sociología, 74, 1-14.
7. Informal sector, popular economy, microfinance and development
