Representative time use data and new harmonised calibration of the American Heritage Time Use Data (AHTUD) 1965-1999

Abstract

Representative and reliable individual time use data, in connection with a proper set of socio-economic back-ground variables, are essential elements for the empirical foundation and evaluation of existing and new theories in general and in particular for time use analyses. Within the international project Assessing Time Use Survey Datasets several potentially useful individual US time use heritage datasets have been identified for use in de-veloping an historical series of non-market accounts. In order to evaluate the series of American Heritage Time Use Data (AHTUD) (1965, 1975, 1985, 1992-94, 1998-99) this paper analyses the representativeness of this data when using given weights and provides a new harmonised calibration of the AHTUD for sound time use analyses. Our calibration procedure with its ADJUST program package is theoretically founded on information theory, consistent with a simultaneous weighting including hierarchical data, ensures desired positive weights, and is well-suited and available for any time use data calibration of interest. We present the calibration approach and provide new harmonised weights for all AHTUD surveys based on a substantially driven calibration frame-work. To illustrate the various application possibilities of a calibration, we finally disentangle demographic vs. time use behavioural changes and developments by re-calibrating all five AHTUD surveys using 1965 popula-tion totals as a benchmark.