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The measurement of women and men’s time : basic concepts

The measurement of women and men’s time : basic concepts. Italian National Statistical Institute. Linda Laura Sabbadini Istat - Italian National Statistical Institute. The subject. The aims. In my presentation I will deal with: general issues about the carrying out of a Time Use survey

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The measurement of women and men’s time : basic concepts

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  1. The measurement of women and men’s time: basic concepts Italian National Statistical Institute Linda Laura Sabbadini Istat - Italian National Statistical Institute

  2. The subject The aims In my presentation I will deal with: • general issues about the carrying out of a Time Use survey • and some specific questions, that will look very detailed but very important to correctly realize such a complex survey. Time use

  3. Gender statistics and Time Use Surveys The aims Time Use Surveys are a precious source of information on gender statistics With Time Use data: • It is possible to analyse in detail the division of domestic and extra-domestic work loads between men and women with TUS data. • It’s possible to understand how men and women use their time • It’s possible to identify the way gender differences in time use develop during the various stages of life Time use

  4. Time use data can also be analysed to study: • The relationship between working times, times of study, of other productive activities, leisure time and family care • The activities and needs of particular social categories (elderly and children) • Household productive activities not reported by the National Accounting System • The times in which public services are used • The times in which places and locations are used (useful for their better planning ) • The Use of leisure time • The use of the mass media including the most innovative IT tools The aims Time use

  5. At a macro level – TUS offers a detailed picture to plan: The aims • Family policies more attentive to the necessity of conjugating working activities and family duties and to the necessities of elderly and children; • A labour policy more conscious of the characteristics and of the new forms of work; • A better transportation organization according to the information about the daily mobility and the means of transports used; • A better planning and organization of general services Time use

  6. For these potential utilisations: The international attention for the Time Use surveys is very strong In the European context the HETUS project (Harmonised European Time Use Studies) has been created to harmonize the Time Use surveys The Guidelines have been written and published during this project, in the year 2000. At present these Guidelines, although not constraining, are the main reference guide for the Member countries that are interessed in the international results’ comparability in the Time Use Survey planning In the international context, the MTUS project (Multinational Time Use Studies) has the objective to collect the dataset coming from the Time Use Surveys carried out in 20 countries and to produce comparative tables. The context Time use

  7. Which is the proper operative instrument to survey the Time use and …. The methodology • To study how the different social subjects use their life times? • To understand how its usage varies at the changing of the life styles and conditions of the different social subjects? 3. To learn the organization, combination and articulating modalities of family life times? 4. To individuate the implications connected to new labour forms, and, in general, working life models? Time use

  8. How is it possible to attain all these goals? The methodology Using not a questionnaire but a daily diary In this way it’s possibile to individuate the way people organize or simply live the time dimension of their life: AT THE MAXIMUM DETAIL LEVEL Time use

  9. What are the main TUS characteristics? The methodology • Population and sample design • Number of diaries (week day and week-end day) • Coverage of the year • 4 tools: daily diary weekly diary individual questionnaire household questionnaire • Fieldwork monitoring • Activity coding list BASIC TABLES Time use

  10. Population and sample design • TUS are restricted to persons resident at domestic addresses. This means that persons in institutions (military service, hospitals, prisons) or with no regular abode are not to be included in the Time Use surveys • Persons of 10 years and older are included in the Time Use Surveys. If that recommendation can not be followed the minimum age limit is 15 years and older Why? Because it’s very important that all ages are represented for a generational analysis of time use The methodology Time use

  11. Population: the italian choice The methodology In Italy, as in the previous survey carried out in 1988/89, we’ve chosen to also ask children, aged three years and more, to fill in the diary. Obviously when necessary it was the mother or another adult to fill in the diary describing the daily activities of her child/children Why this choice? Because it’s very important, as the literature teaches, to know and analyse the childrens’ time Time use

  12. Population and sample design The methodology • Highest priority is given to individual observation and to keep individual non-response low • All members of the household are included in the sample Why? To make the analysis of different perspectives of intra-household dependencies possible Only in this way we are able to know exactly how partners use their time and to study the intra-household division of domestic and extra-domestic work by gender Time use

  13. Number of diary days The methodology It is preferable to ask the interviewed to compile two diary days, a weekday (Monday-Friday) and a weekend day (Saturday or Sunday) Why? Because only in this way it is possible to study the variation of a person in his use of time The use of only one day is also acceptable, but with only one diary day it’s impossible to have any idea of the intra-personal variation The general rule from this point of view is that more diary days are better Time use

  14. Number of diary days: Italian experience The methodology In Italy we’ve chosen to use only one diary day • because of the sample numerosity (about 25.000 households for a total of more than 55.000 individuals) • to reduce the burden on respondents • and to contain the non-response rate Time use

  15. Coverage of the year The methodology The survey field work should be spread over 12 consecutive months and average time use over a year is estimated for very different activities WHY COVER AN ENTIRE YEAR? Time use

  16. Because: • People carry out their activities in time according to different cycles (for example.daily, weekly, monthly, annual ) that follow natural or social paces • The annual cycle, articulated in all its seasonal phases, is the observation period considered most adeguate to compile a time budget • It’s not opportune to exclude from observation the “anomalous” periods, because we would exclude from the budget particular activities carried outexactly in those periods (for example, winter leisure time activities or seasonal jobs ) The methodology Time use

  17. Coverage of the year The survey days/dates have to be representative of and cover a full 12 months period Why every day? The methodology Every day of every week and of every month is included in the survey because there could be cycles of a less duration than a year that must be surveyed: • During the week there could be days in which particular activities are concentrated (Saturday shopping, Sunday Mass, weekday rest for some categories of workers, etc) • In the same way, there could be some activities concentrated in particular moments of the month (shopping at the salary handover, payment of bills at post offices, etc.) Time use

  18. The sample is structured in such a way that everydayof the year is appropriately represented with all of its particularities This sample design permits to achieve the objective of giving estimates on the activities carried out and detected by the diaries : • for different types of days 1. MONDAY-FRIDAY 2. SATURDAY 3. SUNDAY 4. AVERAGE DAY OF THE WEEK • in each quarter of the year The methodology Time use

  19. The objective of calculating estimates for four different types of days is the result of a long debate in the international context Anglo-Saxon countries proposed only to differentiate week days from weekend days because in Northern countries time use isn’t very different for Saturdays and Sundays A different position, which in the end convinced everyone, was that of Mediterranean countries which underlined the great difference between activities carried out on Saturdays (in many cases a working day) and the ones carried out on Sundays, and so the importance to provide estimates for three types of days and not only two as proposed by the Anglo-Saxons. The methodology Time use

  20. Selection of diary days The methodology Diary days/dates have to be allocated amoung households/individuals by a controlled random procedure The household cannot modify the day to fill in the diary according to its own ease or else, because this would imply a deformation of the time budget. This deformation would be greater if the choice of day is linked to the type or intensity of the activities which will be carried out in those days Days which are more or less busy, spent at work or on vacation, at home or travelling, “normal” or “particular”: they must all be surveyed to correctly determine the overall time allocation amoung the different activities Time use

  21. By self-interview Why? This is the only possible way: • To register all the activities during the day, including the ones of short duration or the ones that are often forgotten because of the little importance they assume • To avoid the memory effect, or rather the memory deformation introduced by compiling the diary the day after How is the diary filled in? The daily diary Time use

  22. What are the contents of the daily diary? The daily diary The daily diary starts at 04:00 am and covers 24 hours with144 intervals of 10 minutes. The diary pages have: • One column wheremain activitiescarried out should be recorded (freely expressed) • One column to recordparallel activitiescarried out at the same time (freely expressed) • One column in wich thepresence of other personsshould be recorded (with pre-coded items) According to the Guidelines information on location at least be coded by using ther diary information on activities. Time use

  23. What are the contents of the daily diary? The daily diary In Italy we introduced a fourth column, where respondents had to record the location where they were or the mean of transport used to move(freely expressed) This choice induced the respondents to provide more details in describing travelling and changing of location, which is one of the activities that is most difficult to reconstruct and to code, due to the lack of exact information provided in describing them. Adding a column ad hoc for describing the location, undoubtedly it has been facilitated the identification of movements and trips. Time use

  24. The daily diary

  25. What are the contents of the daily diary? The daily diary One page of instructions Three pages of examples Diary pages, covering 3 hours each day A few questions at the end, and A checklist at the end Time use

  26. How to plan the diary? The duration of the intervals The daily diary The pilot surveys carried out in the 90’s in Italy e Sweden demonstrated that: • The recourse to open intervals, that’s to say where the respondents had to point out freely the beginning time and the ending time of every activity described, besides to express the activities, produced a understimate of the number of activities reported. • The intervals of 5 minutes induced respondents to report not very important activities (for example: I open the door, I close the window, etc.). • The intervals of 15 minutes induced respondents to aggregate excessively the activities. So, the suggested duration of the intervals is 10 minutes Time use

  27. How to plan the diary? The instructions The daily diary A particular care in the plan of the daily diary must be given to instructions on how to fill in it: Instructions have to aim to reduce the most frequent errors of compilation and have to remind respondents, for example: • they must report carried out activities every two or three hours in order to not forget any activity; • they must fill in every time interval, and they must not omit any interval; • they must point out the extension of an activity lasting more than 10 minutes by a line joining all intervals for the complete duration of the activity; • they must clearly point out reasons of possible travels etc. Time use

  28. How to plan the diary? The graphic aspect The daily diary A particular care in the plan of the daily diary must be given to its graphic aspects. In Italy, a practical instrument has been realized in terms of size, and user-friendly in terms of aesthetics. In relation to the first aspect, we opted for a format that was smaller than A4 size, but not a pocketbook size so as not to reduce printed characters too much or the space set aside for completing the diary by hand, which would have made this difficult especially for some categories of people (the aged, etc.) and would have given rise to demotivating the respondents. Time use

  29. How to plan the diary? The graphic aspects The daily diary To improve the aesthetic appearance and involve respondents more: ·photos from daily life were used on the cover for making in some way make each category of respondent (workers, mothers, senior citizens, etc.) feel an important part of the survey; ·particular care was taken with the page of instructions on how to complete the document, making use of characters and colours that highlighted the key information to be gathered; • the warnings at the foot of each page with the timetable to be completed, aimed at limiting the errors we knew to be most frequent when filling in diaries. Time use

  30. Who have to fill in the diary? The daily diary • Every member aged 3 or more must fill in the daily diary the scheduled date, assigned randomly to the household Why? • Because only in this way it is possible to make intra-household analyses of the time use and to answer questions like these: While is mummy cooking the dinner, what is daddy doing? Where is he?And whom are the sonswith? Time use

  31. How does the interviewer behave? The interviewer The designated date cannot be changed nor by the interviewer nor by the household If the household has problems to fill in the diary on the designated day…. How does the interviewer behave? It is possible to postpone the compiling date, to one or two weeks later, as long as the day of the week is the same Why? To avoid easy choices, auto-selection…. Time use

  32. What must the interviewer do? The interviewer The interviewer has to follow the household: • Call the household to remind it to fill in the diary • Verify, the day after, that the diary has been filled it in • Help the household fill in the diary at the moment of picking it up, as long as this takes place the day after Time use

  33. The importance of monitoring The methodology The survey’s complexity, the necessity to follow all the method indications given to the interviewers and interviewees require the necessity to implement a monitoring system to control the unfolding of the survey In general it’s important to include actions concerning recruitment and training of interviewers, planning and supervision on interviewers’ work and the supervision of the coding activity In Italy a monitoring form has been conceived to photograph the situation of each sample household at the moment of the scheduled diary withdrawal Time use

  34. The Italian experience The methodology Objectives : • regularly monitor (weekly) the survey unfolding • keep the most critical aspects of the survey under control (non-response rate, but also diary compiling errors, postponement recourse, etc.) • individuate territorial realities and staff in charge of the survey with low quality standards • offer an informational instrument during the survey usefulfor a better planning and management of the field work Time use

  35. Coming back to the daily diary The coding The respondents describe the activities performed using common language The coding process translates the sentences reported by the interviewed into codes Classification system proposed by Eurostat, adapted to the national needs International comparability Time use

  36. Coding activity: the problems The coding Association text-code is not an easy one to one linkage, but it is the outcome of a process Extreme content variety Extreme language variety Necessity to keep a lot of contextual information under control Scarcity/Redundancy of Information Wrong compilation (wrong cell use) Incomplete compilation (missing information about some variables in one or more intervals) Time use

  37. Two equal actions, performed in the same setting, can be coded in different ways depending on their different purpose The coding The same activity can be coded with differents codes depending on: • who performs it (sex, age, profession, household structure, etc.) • location where the activity takes place • the target of action • the sequence of activities • etc. Time use

  38. Examples of difficulties: The coding For whom is it performed? For own household 31-39 To help other households 421-429 Examples To cook for own household 311 To cook for a sick friend 421 To care for own children 38 To care for own grandchildren (not cohabiting) 427 Time use

  39. How to codify social life? The coding TALKING … who talks to whom? where does one talk? in which occasion? does one use a telephone? or a PC? Time use

  40. To talk with household members The coding WHO TALKS TO WHOM? An adult is talkingwith achild/boy (0-17 years)of his own household3832 (Reading and talking with children/teenagers) An adult is talking withanother adult of his own household 511 (Socialize with own household) A child is talking with an adult of his own household 511 (Socialize with own household) A child is talkingwith achild/boy of his own household511 (Socialize with own household) Time use

  41. The activity classification list 0 PERSONAL CARE 1 EMPLOYMENT 2 STUDY • HOUSEHOLD AND FAMILY CARE 3.1 Food management 3.1.1 Food preparation 3.1.2 Baking 3.1.3 Dish washing 3.1.3.1 Laying/clearing the table 3.1.4 Preserving 3.2 Household upkeep …… 4 VOLUNTEER WORK AND MEETINGS 5 SOCIAL LIFE AND ENTERTAINMENT 6 SPORTS AND OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES 7 HOBBY AND GAMES 8 MASS MEDIA 9 TRAVEL AND UNSPECIFIED TIME USE The coding Time use

  42. Which tool for coding The coding There are three tools for coding activities: • Manual coding • Assisted coding or semi-automatic coding • Automatic coding WHICH TOOL TO CHOOSE? Time use

  43. The weekly diary The weekly diary • It’s timetable form • For persons aged 15 or more • Self-interview • The diary is filling in by everyone that has carried out at least 15 minutes of work during the week, writing a line. The first line is the first day, the second line is the second day. • Every line is divided in 24 hours. Every hour is divided in intervals of 15 minutes. Time use

  44. The weekly diary

  45. Principal knowledge objectives Punctual estimate of the time spent at paid work for each day of the reference week (net length of the working day, that’s to say without considering the lunch break and the other breaks) For each day several time intervals spent at work The weekly diary is filled in by the official employed and by everyone that has carried out at least 15 minutes of work during the considered week (it allows thereforeto capture every kind of working activity) It allows to analyse the conciliation of the working time inside the household The weekly diary Time use

  46. Are thediariesenough? It is necessary to have contextual information about: • individual and household characteristics • thematic aspects The questionnaire Time use

  47. The individual questionnaire The individual questionnaire must not be a complex tool, because it must give adequate importance to the daily dairy At European level particular importance is given to the objective to be individuated: the multiform aspects of the labour reality using the LFS definitions of the principal aggregates concerning the labour market The questionnaire Time use

  48. Why survey labour in Tus? • Dimension of the working time • Capability of influencing the non-working time (family time, leisure time) • Transformations of the labour market A particular attention is dedicated to survey the non standard jobs (both no typical jobs and independent work), or rather jobs implying: > different places • flexible timetables > different modalities (shift work, on sundays, etc.) The questionnaire Time use

  49. The main indicators The data Generic average duration which is the average duration of each activity carried out during the day, considering all people Specific average duration which is the average duration of each activity carried out during the day. considering only the people who carried it out Participation rate which express how many people carried out the activity out of the while population, thus measuring the impact of a specific activity within the population. Time use

  50. The main tables The data Average duration (generic and specific) of the single activities (main, parallel, total) Duration according to the place where the 24 hours have been spent/or where the activities have been performed Duration according to the people with whom the 24 hours have been spent/ or present during the performed activities Frequency of the population that performs a determinate activity/ is in a definite place/ is with definite people Frequency of the principal combinations of activities Time use

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