Les ménages sont responsables d’une part significative des consommations d’énergie et des émissions de CO2, en particulier si l’on tient compte des consommations d’énergie et des émissions indirectes liées aux processus de production des biens et services consommés. Plusieurs travaux scientifiques et recommandations d’organisations gouvernementales et d’associations non-gouvernementales soulignent que des modifications des modes de consommations seront sans doute nécessaires pour atteindre les objectifs climatiques fixés aujourd’hui. Notre thèse propose une méthode d’analyse prospective de changements de mode de vie, qui permet d’en estimer les impacts macro-économiques ainsi que ceux sur les consommations d’énergie et les émissions de CO2, tout en tenant compte de l'hétérogénéité des ménages en matière de comportements et de consommations d'énergie. Notre méthode explore les modes de consommation des ménages de manière fine, en prenant en considération le lien entre emplois du temps et consommations. En effet, les choix de consommation sont soumis non seulement à des contraintes de budget, mais également à des contraintes qui dérivent du temps à disposition et qui ne sont jamais prises en compte dans la prospective macro- économique. Nous construisons une base de données détaillant emplois du temps, dépenses et consommations d’énergie des ménages français et nous l’articulons à un modèle de prospective économique énergie-émissions par un processus de repondération itératif. Nous illustrons la portée de cet outil à travers l’analyse de trois scénarios, centrés respectivement sur la diffusion de nouvelles formes de mobilité (covoiturage et autopartage), la généralisation des achats en ligne et le retour vers le faire soi-même en matière d'alimentation. Pour les trois scénarios nous observons des réductions des consommations d’énergie et des émissions de CO2. Par exemple, les émissions totales diminuent de 2,3% en 2050 dans le scénario sur la mobilité. / Household energy consumption represents a significant share of final energy use, especially when both direct and embodied energy are taken into account. Several academic studies, as well as the recommendations of the United Nations and of non-governmental organisations, suggest that a shift in consumption patterns will be necessary to achieve sustainable development. The aim of our research is to analyse long-term scenarios of changes in lifestyle. We propose a methodology that allows to analyse the macro-economic impacts of these changes, as well as the impacts on energy use and CO2 emissions, while taking into account the heterogeneity of behaviours and energy consumptions among households. Consumption choices do not derive solely from monetary considerations but they are influenced by several factors. One binding constraint, never taken into account in macro-economic energy modelling, is the available time. For this reason, our analysis considers time use data in addition to expenditure and energy use data. We build a data base that combines time use, expenditure and energy consumption data for French households, which provides detailed information about household consumption patterns. Then, for scenario analyses, we link the data base with an Energy-EconomyEmissions model, using an iteration process based on a reweighting technique. We illustrate the methodology by exploring three areas of change in consumption patterns: cooking habits, ecommerce and shared transport (carpooling and car sharing). We obtain CO2 emissions reductions in all scenarios. As an example, emissions decrease by 2.3% by 2050 in the scenario focusing on transport.

Magister Scientiae (Occupational Therapy) - MSc(OT) / School dropout particularly amongst youth living in impoverished areas is a major concern in South Africa because of limited opportunities and resources. Therefore, these youth may experience leisure boredom, engage in sensation seeking and other risky behaviours, such as substance use, which influences their health and wellbeing. However, little research has explored youth who have dropped out of school with a specific focus on their free time experience and use of substances.

Access to electricity might in some parts of the world seem evident. However, Ethiopia struggles to provide its large and growing population with electricity. Although around all the households in the capital Addis Ababa are connected to the electricity grid, the grid is unreliable and results in daily outages. As the photovoltaic (PV) potential in Addis Ababa on the other hand is great, this thesis examines the feasibility and profitability of decentralized PV adoption with battery and hydrogen storage respectively. Based on an ongoing construction project in the sub-city Yeka, Addis Ababa, a reference building was used to simulate the PV systems with battery and hydrogen storage. Furthermore, a load profile based on time-use diaries was developed and used in the simulations, as data on household electric consumption was non-existent. The load profile resulted in an average daily use of 1341 kWh and a 165 kW peak for all of the 130 apartments in the reference building. The results of the simulations indicated that neither of the two systems were feasible nor profitable to implement on the reference building. The PV-system with battery storage was cheaper and required less installed PV capacity, however the cost of energy for both systems was significantly higher than the current cost of energy in Ethiopia. The installed PV capacity of both systems exceeded the maximum capacity that was feasible on the reference building.

The purpose of this study was to inductively examine the content of the popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by analyzing its latent and subjective meaning to discover basic social psychological issues associated with family recreation. The entire collection of 1,360 Calvin and Hobbes strips was evaluated using Grounded Theory techniques influenced by the art scholarship evaluation tool iconography. Review of the strip suggests one way to assess the meaning associated with time use is through preemptive retrospection by which a person looks at current experiences through the lens of an anticipated future to estimate how meaningful that time will be. Overall, Calvin and Hobbes suggests that meaningful time use is a key attribute of a life well lived. One key element of meaningful time use is time spent with family. The strip also helps us see the value in continuing to seek that meaning with family despite apparent setbacks. This analysis brought to light issues associated with gathering meaning from comic strips, which are also discussed. Recommendations are made for future research in the field.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the gendered housework division in Greece based on research questions about participation by gender, chore types, and factors like age, education, and employment's influence, as well as uncovering related dynamics and trends. A quantitative analysis is employed using Greece's single time use survey conducted in 2013, which reveals substantial gender inequalities in housework division. Women dedicate nearly three times more than men daily to housework, even when employed in paid jobs. Age-wise, the gender gap persists, increasing with age. Core household tasks such as cooking, house cleaning, and laundry are dominated by women, while men spend more time on activities like gardening and repairs. Comparisons with European data highlight similar trends. A need for new surveys and gender norms exploration for policy change is evident.

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This thesis consists of four self-contained essays in economics, all concerned with different aspects of subjective well-being. The abstracts of the four studies are as follows. Beyond Income: The Importance for Life Satisfaction of Having Access to a Cash Margin. We study how life satisfaction among adult Swedes is influenced by having access to a cash margin, i.e. a moderate amount of money that could be acquired on short notice either through own savings, by loan from family or friends, or by other means. We find that cash margin is a strong and robust predictor of life satisfaction, also when controlling for individual fixed effects and socio-economic conditions, including income. Decomposing Variation in Daily Feelings: The Role of Time Use and Individual Characteristics. I explore the potential of using time-use data for understanding variation in affective well-being. Using the Princeton Affect and Time Survey, I decompose variation in daily affect into explained and unexplained within- and between person variation. Time use is found to mostly account for within-variation. Hence, its explanatory power is largely additive to that of individual characteristics. The explanatory power of time use is small, however. Activities only account for 1–7% of the total variation and this is not increased much by adding contextual variables. The Association Between Life Satisfaction and Affective Well-Being. We estimate the correlation between life satisfaction and affect — two conceptually distinct dimensions of subjective well-being. We propose a simple model that distinguishes between a stable and a transitory component of affect, and which also accounts for measurement error in self-reports of both variables, including current-mood bias effects on life satisfaction judgments. The model is estimated using momentarily measured well-being data, from an experience sampling survey that we conducted on a population sample of Swedes aged 18–50 (n=252). Our main estimates of the correlation between life satisfaction and long-run affective well-being range between 0.78 and 0.91, indicating a stronger convergence between these variables than many previous studies that do not account for measurement issues. Do OLS and Ordinal Happiness Regressions Yield Different Results? A Quantitative Assessment. Self-reported subjective well-being scores are often viewed as ordinal variables, but the conventional wisdom has it that OLS and ordered regression models (e.g. ordered probit) produce similar results when applied to such data. This claim has rarely been assessed formally, however, in particular with respect to quantifying the differences. I shed light on this issue by comparing the results from OLS and different ordered regression models, in terms of both statistical and economic significance, and across data sets with different response scales for measuring life satisfaction. The results are mixed. The differences between OLS, probit and logit estimates are typically small when the response scale has few categories, but larger, though not huge, when an 11-point scale is used. Moreover, when the error term is assumed to follow a skewed distribution, larger discrepancies are found throughout. I find a similar pattern in simulations, in which I assess how different methods perform with respect to the true parameters of interest, rather than to each other.

ABSTRACT When depressive illness has its onset during adolescence it can exert a profound negative influence upon the individual and their daily functioning. Early identification of young people at risk of, or already experiencing, depressive symptoms is critical to enabling targeted intervention from clinicians, including occupational therapists. Early identification, however, is hampered by an incomplete understanding of how the disorder manifests in the daily lives of adolescents. The mental health determinants and sequelae of engagement in everyday activities represent core concerns of occupational therapists. As part of therapy with adolescents in Child and Youth Mental Health Services (CYMHS), occupational therapists endeavour to improve health by assessing time use, and engaging in interventions which explicitly target involvement in daily activity. Notwithstanding current practice, evidence for a link between actual time use and depressive symptom severity is scant. Background and Research Aims In this thesis the time use of adolescents is explored and related to depressive symptom severity in a series of three cross sectional studies. In keeping with ecologically- and occupation-focussed theoretical models of health and adolescent development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Poulsen & Ziviani, 2004; World Health Organization, 2002), a novel approach to the study of time use has been taken. The studies quantify the amount of time that adolescents are exposed to the various conditions inherent in activities and their ecological settings. In conceptualising time use as ‘exposure’, attention is drawn specifically to common affordances of activities. In this thesis these are described as ‘underlying dimensions’ of time use. Key underlying dimensions of interest include (a) ‘physical exertion’ in daily time use, (b) time spent with different social partners, and (c) time engaged in structured activities. The studies make use of cumulative estimates of time use by summing each episode of exposure to the underlying dimensions of time use, across the out-of-school hours. This research was conducted with the aims of (a) aiding early identification of adolescents who are vulnerable to depressive illness, (b) examining the evidence for the assessment of time use in CYMHS, (c) identifying aspects of adolescent time use which are appropriate targets for occupational therapists’ intervention, and (d) directing future research into the effectiveness of time use-focussed interventions offered by occupational therapists to adolescents who are vulnerable to depressive illness. Methodology and Study Findings All the studies involve secondary analysis of interview and time diary data collected from a nationally representative sample of approximately 730 adolescents (13-18 years) participating in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement II. Data were gathered in 2002/2003 by the Institute of Social Research at the University of Michigan in America. Studies 1 and 2 employ ordinal logistic regression analyses to separately explore two of the underlying dimensions of time use, namely the physical exertion in daily activity, and the time spent engaged in activity alone or with key social partners (including parents, siblings and friends). These studies indicate that time devoted to physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity does not predict depressive symptom severity, breadth of participation in sporting extracurricular activity may be protective against depressive illness for males. For both genders, factors related to the positive or negative aspects of social relationships (such as adolescents’ ratings of how close they felt to parents, and the extent of risky behaviour among friends) appear to be stronger predictors of depressive symptomatology than the actual amount of time engaged in activity with others. Study 3 is informed conceptually and methodologically by the findings of Studies 1 and 2, and uses structural equation modeling, to examine a complex multivariate model of time use and depressive symptoms. This model incorporates a large range of factors which are theorized to influence the qualitative experience of spending time in a given context (e.g., adolescents’ perceptions of friend acceptance, which may influence the psychological impact of a prolonged encounter with friends). Study 3 reveals that the quantity of time over the course of a weekday or weekend day that adolescents are exposed to different types of activity (e.g., structured extracurricular activity, shared activity with parents) has no direct association with depressive symptom severity. However, an indirect path is identified, whereby the amount of time devoted to joint activity with parents is linked with depressive symptom severity via adolescent perceptions of parent acceptance. Conclusions and Recommendations The studies of this thesis have shown that the conceptualisation and quantification of time use as cumulative exposure to some specific underlying dimensions of engagement, are of little direct assistance in identifying young people who are vulnerable to depressive illness, however, this information may inform a range of clinical practices for occupational therapists working in CYMHS. Information on time use is therefore worth gathering in such services, particularly when it provides insights into social contact. It has been clearly and consistently identified that time use and its links with depression cannot be fully appreciated without considering the nature of adolescents’ relationships with their social partners in time use. Findings indicate that when time spent engaged in joint activity with parents is scant, or when poor relationships with parents are reported, adolescents at risk of depression are likely to benefit from therapy which is directed towards enhancing the quantity and quality of parent-adolescent interactions. The significance of this research lies in the generation of evidence to support further research into time use and its implications for mental health. Greater support for the specialist role of occupational therapists in addressing time use concerns will be gained through future studies which explore the immediate affective experience of spending time in activity, the personal and environmental contextual factors which mediate these experiences, and the implications of such experiences for mental health. Further to the insights gained regarding time use and depressive illness, the thesis presents an approach to research (i.e., a secondary analysis) and research methodologies which may be used by occupational therapists to answer complex questions regarding occupational engagement across the lifespan. Keywords: Adolescence, Depression, Internalizing Disorder, Time Use, Time Diary, Physical Activity, Social Contexts, Structured Extracurricular Activity, Organised Activity, Structural Equation Modeling. Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC): 111714 Mental Health 100%.