Using a time conditions framework to explore the impact of government policies on the commodification of public goods and women’s defamilization risks

Abstract

This article makes contributions to the field of defamilization, discretionary time and the commodification of goods. It introduces the ‘time conditions framework’ to examine the impact of the government’s responses to the commodification of public goods on women’s defamilization risks that limit women from performing different family roles. Referring to the Hong Kong government’s policies on handling the Covid 19 pandemic, this article explores four issues: how government policies on the commodification of public goods can create unfavourable time conditions for tackling defamilization risks; how these policies can create multiple defamilization risks; how these policies can undermine families’ capacity to support women; and how these policies could be revised to address such risks.