Time use among New Zealand Members of Parliament

Abstract

This article provides a first attempt to describe time use among Members of Parliament (MPs). Drawing on an original survey on time use and a time diary of three working days (Wednesday-Friday) collected in 2013 among New Zealand MPs (N ¼ 22), it presents a quantification and description of MPs' time use. The data indicate that with an average of 13 h 20 min, MPs have long working days and many seem to face work-life balance issues. MPs also undertake a broad variety of activities during their working time, with meetings with various actors taking up a large part of their time. Finally, a correspondence analysis reveals that male and female MPs as well as first term and more experienced MPs display some differences in their time use. Social activities dominate more of the time of male MPs than they do for female MPs. Experienced MPs seem to spend more time in the House than first-term MPs. The latter spend more time on communication than experienced MPs.

Leadership on the run: time management among deputy ministers in Canada

“…Scholars have devoted more attention to how politicians manage their time. Coffé (2017) reviewed the use of time among Members of Parliament in New Zealand, while the use of time by elected representatives has also been explored in France (Lefebvre, 2009, 2014; Marrel and Payre, 2018). Godmer and Marrel (2015) closely scrutinized the agenda of a particular French female politician; Delphine Dulong (2015) explored the time management of the chief of staff of the French Prime Minister and more recently detailed the agendas of Michel Debré and Georges Pompidou (Dulong, 2019).…”

Whose bread I eat, their song I sing? How the gender of MPs influences the use of oversight mechanisms in government and opposition

“…From an academic perspective, such clear gendered patterns are astonishing, since legislative oversight is a highly institutionalised activity, with party dynamics almost deciding about MPs' actions. Previous research has already highlighted how the way MPs fulfil their representative (e.g., Celis, 2006;Höhmann, 2020) and party (e.g., Coffé, 2017;Clayton and Zetterberg, 2021) tasks is gendered. By adding the oversight tasks to this list, this article clarifies that all dimensions of legislative action are shaped by the sex of the actors involved.…”

“…Such behaviour can enhance the electoral success of the opposition party and might be rewarded by party gatekeepers with larger support for MPs' renomination. However, with policy-making in committees and the plenum, media occurrences, written communication with the electorate, occurrences on public events, often also additional party office obligations, time constraints will force MPs to prioritise (Coffé, 2017). If this prioritisation goes at the expense of legislative oversight activities, incumbents belonging to opposition parties might raise doubts about their dedication to party goals and agenda.…”

The gendered political ambition cycle in mixed-member electoral systems

“…These events frequently occur in the evenings or on weekends when childcare is often not available, making such appearances difficult for women to combine with their household responsibilities. New Zealand research on the time use of MPs (Coffé, 2017) confirms that male MPs spend more time on social activities (organised by a party, Parliament or an association) than women do, which has been explained by the greater difficulty for women to combine social activities with their responsibilities within their private households. One female district MP interviewed by Reiser (2011: 254) described how she went about obtaining a ballot nomination: 'I hired a driver for six weeks and drove around to introduce myself to all the local delegates [voting on the nomination].…”