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
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...
. 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.
Early life
Rice was born in 1972 in
Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
,
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...
. His mother was a
Minangkabau Minangkabau may refer to:
* Minangkabau culture, culture of the Minangkabau people
* Minangkabau Culture Documentation and Information Center
* Minangkabau Express, an airport rail link service serving Minangkabau International Airport (''see belo ...
woman from
Medan
Medan (; English: ) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, as well as a regional hub and financial centre of Sumatra. According to the National Development Planning Agency, Medan is one of the four mai ...
,
North Sumatra. His father, who was born in
Ann Arbor,
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
, was an economist who taught economics at the
University of Hawaii
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...
and
Monash University
Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...
, in addition to conducting a large number of consultancies in
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
.
Research
Housework and domestic appliances
Whether
domestic appliances
A home appliance, also referred to as a domestic appliance, an electric appliance or a household appliance, is a machine which assists in household functions such as cooking, cleaning and food preservation.
Appliances are divided into three ty ...
designed to save time on
housework, like
dishwasher
A dishwasher is a machine that is used to clean dishware, cookware, and cutlery automatically. Unlike manual dishwashing, which relies heavily on physical scrubbing to remove soiling, the mechanical dishwasher cleans by spraying hot water, ty ...
s,
microwave oven
A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce ...
s, deep freezers, and
clothes dryers, actually do save time has been examined in research by Michael Bittman, James Mahmud Rice, and
Judy Wajcman
Judy Wajcman, is the Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the Principal Investigator of the Women in Data Science and AI project at The Alan Turing Institute. She is also a Visi ...
.
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.
Discretionary time and temporal autonomy
Following the publication of a series of articles on
time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
,
autonomy, the
welfare state
A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...
,
life satisfaction
Life satisfaction is a measure of a person's well-being, assessed in terms of mood, relationship satisfaction, achieved goals, self-concepts, and self-perceived ability to cope with life. Life satisfaction involves a favorable attitude towards one ...
, and time pressure, a book on these topics was published by
Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer.
Cambridge University Pre ...
in 2008. Written by
Robert E. Goodin
Robert 'Bob' E. Goodin (born 30 November 1950) was Professor of Government at the University of Essex and is now Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Social and Political theory at the Australian National University.
Biography
Goodin atten ...
, 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
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
,
Australia,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
,
Sweden, and
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
– 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''.
Low fertility and standards of living
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.
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
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''.
Selected bibliography
Books and reports
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*
Journal articles
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*
References
External links
James Mahmud Rice's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rice, James Mahmud
1972 births
Australian sociologists
Winners of the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research
Minangkabau people
Living people