Comparing a 2 and 7 day registration diary in time-use research Evaluating the EUROSTAT guidelines

Comparing a 2 and 7 day registration diary in time-use research

Evaluating the EUROSTAT guidelines

Contact:[email protected] [email protected]

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)

Paper prepared for the European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, 8-11 July, Rome

European Conference on Quality in Official Statistics, 8-11 July 2008, Rome

Time-use registrationGoals HETUS-project

• Since Szalai a number of conventions with regard to the methodology of time budget research have been established

• Nevertheless: a great variety of recording methods at the moment of recording the information still exists

– Fixed / open time interval

– Precoded activity list / after coding

– Number of diary days recorded

– …

• HETUS: one general guideline for all member countries

=> Guidelines for recording the time-use information


Time-use registrationGoals HETUS-project

• Collecting time-use information in a comparable way

=> Harmonisation

• To make comparisons between countries possible

• Major concerns

– Design of the diary

– Field work

• Our interest centres on the recommendation regarding the

number of diary days


Time-use registrationRecommendations to the number of diary days

• It is recommended to use two diary days, i.e. one

weekday (Monday-Friday) and one weekend-day (Saturday

and Sunday)

• It is strongly recommended that diary days/dates be

allocated to households/individuals by a controlled random

procedure

• It is recommended that the survey days/dates are

representative of, and cover a full 12 month period


Time-use registrationPresenting the time-use results

• Calculating estimates for:

– Weekdays (Monday-Friday)

– Saturday

– Sunday

– All days of the week (Monday-Sunday)

• Synthetic workweek: weekday*5

• Synthetic weekend: weekend day*2

• Synthetic week: (weekday*5)+(weekend day*2)


Time-use registrationGoal this presentation

• Rationale for 2 vs. 7 days:

– Costs of fieldwork– Response rate– Learning/boredom– Number of respondents

– Zero observations– Intra-personal variability– More statistical options– …

• Testing the consequences of the recommendation of

recording only 2 days instead of 7 consecutive days


Time-use registrationDaily vs weekly cycles: an example

• The week cycle is an important cycle in our social life

– F.e. working time, work during weekdays, week/weekend

contrast, the specific character of Sunday and Saturday in the

weekcycle

• Certain activities follow a weekcycle and occur once or

several times a week

– F.e. sports, social life, taking part in associations, cleaning, …


Time-use registrationData used

• Flemish time budget dataset

• Respondents filled in 7 consecutive days, starting day was

randomly determined

• Pooled dataset

– 1999 in total 1394 respondents

– 2004 in total 1860 respondents

• Open time interval / precoded activity list


Time-use registrationCreating 2 day dataset

• Selection of 2 days with the guidelines of EUROSTAT in mind

• Selection of the weekday (total, n=3.254) was not random

=> We selected the first registration day if it was a weekday

=> If not, randomly selected one weekday

• Selection of Saturday or Sunday (total, n=3.254) was random

• Weighting

– Socio-demographic (sexe, age & education)

– Diary days (Mon=Tue=Wed=Thu=Fri); (Sat=Sun)


Time-use registrationMean time/week, hours and minutes: all respondents

2-day registration

7-day registration

Diff.

Paid labour 20:51 20:46 -0:05

Housework 19:20 19:10 -0:10

Childcare 2:30 2:30 0:00

Personal care 15:31 15:35 +0:04

Sleep & rest 60:53 61:11 +0:18

Education 2:37 2:35 -0:02

Social participation 9:48 9:46 -0:02

Leisure 27:07 27:10 +0:03

Waiting 0:09 0:11 +0:02

Travel 7:14 7:12 -0:02

Other 1:54 1:48 -0:06


Time-use registrationFrequency of activities

Workweek (Mon-Fri) Saturday Sunday

1-day 5-days Diff. Diff. Diff.

Paid labour 8,0 8,0 0,0 0,0 0,0

Housework 18,8 19,0 -0,2 0,0 0,0

Childcare 2,8 2,7 +0,1 0,0 0,0

Personal care 22,3 22,4 -0,1 0,0 0,0

Sleep & rest 11,5 11,5 0,0 0,0 0,0

Education 1,2 1,1 +0,1 0,0 0,0

Social part. 5,0 4,8 +0,2 0,0 0,0

Leisure 12,2 12,2 0,0 0,0 0,0

Waiting 0,3 0,4 -0,1 0,0 0,0

Travel 11,8 11,7 +0,1 +0,1 0,0

Other 3,4 3,0 +0,4 +0,1 +0,1


Time-use registrationResults in words

• The estimates on population level between 2-day and 7-day registration for a synthetic week are comparable

• Positive and negative factors (methodology & quality) keep each other in balance

• The largest difference is 18 minutes for the activity ‘Sleep & rest’, however as a percentage of the total time spent sleeping and resting it is nearly 0

• Essential conditions:

– Large(r) sample

– With respect to the length of the registration period

– Equal dispersion of the diary days


Time-use registrationMean time/week, hours and minutes: all respondents

Random selection (50% of the dataset)

2-day 7-dayDiff 2-day vs 7-day

tot

Diff 7-day vs 7-day tot

Paid labour 21:05 20:49 -0:19 -0:03

Housework 19:02 19:09 +0:08 +0:01

Childcare 2:28 2:30 +0:02 0:00

Personal care 15:25 15:31 +0:10 +0:04

Sleep & rest 61:06 61:13 +0:05 -0:02

Education 2:38 2:34 -0:03 +0:01

Social participation 9:47 9:42 -0:01 -0:04

Leisure 27:14 27:16 -0:04 -0:06

Waiting 0:10 0:11 +0:01 0:00

Travel 7:05 7:10 +0:07 +0:02

Other 1:53 1:46 -0:05 +0:02


Time-use registrationResults in words

• Due to a lower sample size, the results are less stable

• Individual diary days are represented by a smaller number of respondents

• Some activity groups are less biased, there is an indication that ‘the more a (sub-) population takes part in an activity as a group, the less a large sample size is needed for a good estimation.’

• Socio-demographical variables / breakdowns to:

– Sexe / age / education / …

– Sexe x age / …

• Closer look with other (international) data -> lager sample


Time-use registrationVariation in different days of the week

• Kalton (1985) variability across the weekdays, Monday till Friday is relatively small

• Stinson (2000) finds evidence that the activity pattern of Friday is different from the other weekdays, and also from Saturday and Sunday

And, could change even more in the future

• Szalai T-Test

• Results pooled dataset

2-day (agg) Mon

Tue Wed

Thu Fri Sat Sun

7-day (agg) Mon

Tue Wed

Thu Fri Sat Sun

7-day (ind) Mon

Tue Wed

Thu Fri Sat Sun


Time-use registrationParticipation rate

• Time-use accounting identity

=> Ti=PiT’i

Ti = mean time population; Pi = population participation rate; T’i = mean time participants

• Participation rate per day, or average along longer period

HETUS

Pi(weekday)=(Pi(mon)+Pi(thu)+Pi(wed)+Pi(thu)+Pi(Fri))/5

• Participation rate across f.e. weekday

7-day registration

Pi(weekday)=Pi(Mon thru Fri)

• F.e. trafic gestion


Time-use registrationRhythm of a weekday (Mon-Fri)

0

10

2030

40

50

60

7080

90

100

0:00 2:00 4:00 6:00 8:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00 22:00

Paid labour 7-day Leisure & Social part 7-daySleep & Personal care 7-day Paid labour 2-dayLeisure & Social part 2-day Sleep & Personal care 2-day


Time-use registration Participation rates

Workweek (Mon-Fri) Saturday Sunday

1 day 5 days Diff. Diff. Diff.

Paid labour 50,4 62,7 -12,3 -0,6 +0,3

Housework 83,3 95,3 -12,0 +0,5 -1,3

Childcare 21,1 33,1 -12,0 +0,4 -0,2

Personal care 99,3 100 -0,7 -0,2 +0,5

Sleep & rest 99,9 100 -0,1 0,0 0,0

Education 11,4 22,4 -11,0 +0,2 -0,3

Social part. 53,7 86,7 -33,0 -1,4 -0,9

Leisure 93,6 99,7 -6,1 -0,7 +0,3

Waiting 4,7 16,4 -11,7 0,0 -0,3

Travel 73,1 89,2 -16,1 +0,4 +0,6

Other 33,4 64,8 -31,4 -0,5 +2,0


Time-use registration Cumulative participation rate

Number of days 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Paid labour 50,4 57,3 59,6 61,1 62,7 62,7 62,9

Housework 83,3 89,5 92,2 94,1 95,3 97,1 97,6

Childcare 21,1 26,0 28,9 31,2 33,1 35,0 36,5

Personal care 99,3 99,9 100 100 100 100 100

Sleep & rest 99,9 100 100 100 100 100 100

Education 11,4 15,0 18,1 20,8 22,4 23,5 24,1

Social part. 53,7 69,3 77,8 82,7 86,7 91,7 94,7

Leisure 93,6 98,7 99,4 99,6 99,7 99,8 99,9

Waiting 4,7 9,6 12,4 14,1 16,4 18,4 19,4

Travel 73,1 80,8 84,9 87,3 89,2 91,3 92,2

Other 33,4 43,8 53,5 59,5 64,8 69,6 72,7

Sports 6,5 11,6 15,4 18,0 18,8 20,5 21,7


Time-use registrationConclusions

• Weekcycle is an important rhythm is our society

• Estimations on population level for a synthetic week on basis of a 2-day registration is comparable with a 7-day registration, the sample size is nevertheless an important factor

• Participation rate and mean time per participants can not be calculated for a weekcycle

• To understand individual behaviour it is appropriate to collect information over 7 consecutive days

• The actual length of the diary period relies on the purpose of the research


Time-use registrationFuture tasks

• Try to find a method / circumstances to extrapolate

participation rates

• Make comparisons with international datasets with a larger

sample size to test our findings and broaden our

recommendations

Documents

Comparing a 2 and 7 day registration diary in time-use research Evaluating the EUROSTAT guidelines