Temporality and the meaning of social security money within households

The relationship between the temporal aspects of social security policy and intra-household dynamics is underexplored. Temporal aspects of policy, including benefit waiting periods and payment frequency, affect the money management within households, influencing, for example, household decision-making. Policy shapes these intra-household dynamics explicitly and, in turn, households’ decisions about money have temporal dimensions. Money as it relates to time also has important experiential and relational features. Drawing on international literature, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom and United States, we consider the temporal aspects of policy that can shape how money is dealt with within households, and how this temporality might best be investigated methodologically. We do this by reviewing the literature but also by considering a United Kingdom-based research project using diary-based methods to examine the micro-dynamics of time and money and by offering ways forward for studying temporality and social security money within households.