James Mahmud Rice (born 1972) is an Australian sociologist in the Demography and Ageing Unit, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. He works at the intersection of sociology, economics, and political science, focusing in particular on inequalities in the distribution of economic resources such as income and time and how private and public conventions and institutions shape these inequalities.[1]

James Mahmud Rice
Born1972 (age 51–52)
Nationality
  • American
  • Australian
AwardsStein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research
Academic work
DisciplineSociologist
Institutions
Websitewww.jamesmahmudrice.info

Early life edit

Rice was born in 1972 in Honolulu, Hawaii. His mother was a Minangkabau woman from Medan, North Sumatra. His father, who was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was an economist who taught economics at the University of Hawaii and Monash University, in addition to conducting a large number of consultancies in Indonesia.[2][3]

Research edit

Housework and domestic appliances edit

Whether domestic appliances designed to save time on housework, like dishwashers, microwave ovens, deep freezers, and clothes dryers, actually do save time has been examined in research by Michael Bittman, James Mahmud Rice, and Judy Wajcman.[4] According to this research these appliances rarely reduce the amount of time people spend on housework and can, in some cases, increase this time. These appliances also have little impact on the traditional division of housework between men and women. When appliances do cut time on housework, it is generally men who benefit rather than women. One explanation offered as to why appliances rarely reduce time on housework is that people use appliances to increase housework standards – for example, to cook more or better meals or to produce cleaner clothes – rather than to save time.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Discretionary time and temporal autonomy edit

Following the publication of a series of articles on time, autonomy, the welfare state, life satisfaction, and time pressure,[13][14][15] a book on these topics was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008.[16][17] Written by Robert E. Goodin, James Mahmud Rice, Antti Parpo, and Lina Eriksson, the book – Discretionary Time: A New Measure of Freedom – develops a new measure of temporal autonomy, which is the freedom to spend one's time as one pleases. Based on data from six countries – the United States, Australia, Germany, France, Sweden, and Finland – the book then describes how temporal autonomy varies under different welfare, gender, and household arrangements.

Goodin, Rice, Parpo, and Eriksson were awarded the 2009 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research in recognition of the substantial and original contribution of Discretionary Time.[18][19][20]

Low fertility and standards of living edit

How low fertility influences standards of living is examined in research published in Science by Ronald Lee, Andrew Mason, James Mahmud Rice, and other members of the National Transfer Accounts Network.[21] This research indicates, on the basis of an analysis of data from 40 countries, that typically fertility well above replacement and population growth would be most beneficial for government budgets. Fertility near replacement and population stability, however, would be most beneficial for standards of living when the analysis includes the effects of age structure on families as well as governments. Fertility moderately below replacement and population decline would maximize standards of living when the cost of providing capital for a growing labour force is taken into account.

Awards and honours edit

In 2009 Rice was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research, together with Robert E. Goodin, Antti Parpo, and Lina Eriksson. The prize was awarded for their book Discretionary Time: A New Measure of Freedom.[19]

Selected bibliography edit

Books and reports edit

  • Goodin, Robert E.; Rice, James Mahmud; Parpo, Antti; Eriksson, Lina (2008). Discretionary Time: A New Measure of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-70951-4. S2CID 154300822.
  • Rice, James Mahmud; Temple, Jeromey; McDonald, Peter (2014). National Transfer Accounts for Australia: 2003–04 and 2009–10 Detailed Results (PDF). ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research and Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University. S2CID 153412815.

Journal articles edit

References edit

  1. ^ "James Mahmud Rice: Home". James Mahmud Rice. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  2. ^ Thee, Kian Wie (2009). "Robert Charles Rice (1939–2009)". Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies. 45 (2): 251–254. doi:10.1080/00074910903040344. S2CID 153924724.
  3. ^ Wills, Ian; Vicziany, Marika; Barton, Greg (14 April 2009). "Modest guru in economics". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 23 September 2019. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
  4. ^ a b Bittman, Michael; Rice, James Mahmud; Wajcman, Judy (2004). "Appliances and their impact: The ownership of domestic technology and time spent on household work". The British Journal of Sociology. 55 (3): 401–423. doi:10.1111/j.1468-4446.2004.00026.x. hdl:1959.4/34267. PMID 15383094. S2CID 29449833. Archived from the original on 29 November 2021. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
  5. ^ Elliott, John (19 September 2004). "It's a hard life on the "labour saving" domestic front". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
  6. ^ Elliott, John (6 October 2004). "Time savers aren't doing their job". The Australian.
  7. ^ Gittins, Ross (5 November 2003). "The more the merrier, or maybe not". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
  8. ^ Horin, Adele (18 October 2003). "Money can't buy bliss in the kitchen". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  9. ^ Morgan, Tom (20 September 2004). "The labour savers that are making slaves of us". Daily Express.
  10. ^ "Leisure in the red with white goods". mX. 20 September 2004.
  11. ^ Safe, Mike (18 October 2003). "The lost weekend – dream travel". The Weekend Australian Magazine.
  12. ^ Schama, Chloe (9 July 2019). "Women still do most of the housework. Can a robot help?". Vogue. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
  13. ^ Goodin, Robert E.; Rice, James Mahmud; Bittman, Michael; Saunders, Peter (2005). "The time-pressure illusion: Discretionary time vs free time". Social Indicators Research. 73 (1): 43–70. doi:10.1007/s11205-004-4642-9. S2CID 145083451.
  14. ^ Rice, James Mahmud; Goodin, Robert E.; Parpo, Antti (2006). "The temporal welfare state: A crossnational comparison" (PDF). Journal of Public Policy. 26 (3): 195–228. doi:10.1017/S0143814X06000523. hdl:10419/31604. S2CID 38187155.
  15. ^ Eriksson, Lina; Rice, James Mahmud; Goodin, Robert E. (2007). "Temporal aspects of life satisfaction". Social Indicators Research. 80 (3): 511–533. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.629.7001. doi:10.1007/s11205-006-0005-z. S2CID 145760620.
  16. ^ Goodin, Robert E.; Rice, James Mahmud; Parpo, Antti; Eriksson, Lina (2008). Discretionary Time: A New Measure of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-70951-4. Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
  17. ^ "Discretionary Time". Cambridge University Press. Archived from the original on 25 July 2018. Retrieved 8 October 2020.
  18. ^ "Stein Rokkan Prize". European Consortium for Political Research. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  19. ^ a b "Stein Rokkan Prize Winners". European Consortium for Political Research. Archived from the original on 4 March 2018. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  20. ^ "Laudation Stein Rokkan Prize 2009 Goodin Rice Parpo Eriksson" (PDF) (Press release). Archived (PDF) from the original on 12 August 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
  21. ^ Lee, Ronald; Mason, Andrew; members of the NTA Network (2014). "Is low fertility really a problem? Population aging, dependency, and consumption". Science. 346 (6206): 229–234. Bibcode:2014Sci...346..229L. doi:10.1126/science.1250542. PMC 4545628. PMID 25301626.

External links edit