American Time Use Research Articles

Latinas' Paid and Unpaid Work: Gender, Development and Social Reproduction in the Midwest in the 21st Century

While there has been sufficient scholarship measuring the flows of remittances from countries receiving immigrants to their countries of origin much less is known about the impact of immigrant paid and unpaid labor on their host communities. We study Latinas in the Midwest and their participation in housework and carework both, within and outside their households. Using the data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which records time spent by persons per household on activities of housework and carework from 2003 to 2016, we quantify the time Midwest Latinas spend as caretakers and reveal their otherwise statistically invisible contributions to social reproduction.

Time Spent Eating, by Immigrant Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Length of Residence in the United States.

IntroductionTime spent eating is associated with obesity and diet-related diseases. We examined the association between time adults spent eating, immigrant status, race/ethnicity, and race/ethnicity among adults in the United States.MethodsWe used multivariate linear regression to analyze a cross-sectional, nationally representative sample of respondents aged 19 years or older (N = 192,486) from the 2016 American Time Use Survey. The outcome measures were time spent per day on primary eating and drinking and secondary eating. The predictors were immigrant status, race/ethnicity, and years spent living in the United States.ResultsMultivariate adjusted minutes per day spent on primary eating and drinking were 66.4 for noncitizens, 66.5 for naturalized citizens, and 60.1 for US-born individuals. Multivariate adjusted minutes per day spent on secondary eating were 11.1 for noncitizens, 12.2 for naturalized citizens, and 12.9 for US-born individuals. Minutes per day spent on primary eating and drinking for immigrants by length of residence in the United States was 69.7 minutes for 5 years or less of residence, 67.9 minutes for 6 to 10 years of residence, 63.6 minutes for 11 to 15 years of residence, and 63.6 minutes for more than 15 years of residence. Minutes per day spent on secondary eating for immigrants by length of residence was 5.5 minutes for 5 years or less of residence, 9.7 minutes for 6 to 10 years of residence, 8.4 minutes for 11 to 15 years of residence, and 12.6 minutes for more than 15 years of residence.ConclusionTime spent eating varied by immigrant status and length of residence in the United States.

Racial Disparities in Financial Security, Work and Leisure Activities, and Quality of Life Among the Direct Care Workforce.

Personal care, home health, and nursing aides provide the majority of care to chronically ill and disabled older adults. This workforce faces challenging working conditions, resulting in high turnover and workforce instability that affect the quality of care for older adults. We examine financial security, work-life balance, and quality of life of Black, Hispanic, and workers of other race/ethnicity compared to White workers. We hypothesize that Black and Hispanic workers experience greater financial insecurity, spend more time on work-related activities and have less time available for leisure activities, and have a lower quality of life compared to White workers. To test these hypotheses, we analyze the American Time Use Survey using descriptive analyses and multivariable and compositional regression. Black and Hispanic individuals were 2-3 times more likely to live in poverty than White individuals. The time use analysis indicated that Black and Hispanic workers spent more time on work-related activities and less time on nonwork-related activities, including longer work commutes and less time exercising. In analyses of aggregated paid/unpaid work and leisure, Black workers were the only group that spent significantly more time working and less time on leisure activities compared to White workers. This may explain the lower quality of life that we only observed in Black workers. Racial/ethnic disparities in well-being among direct care workers may affect the care older adults receive and contribute to widening inequities in this workforce and society. Policymakers should direct efforts toward securing funding for workers, incentivizing employer provisions, and implementing racial equity approaches.

Telework After COVID: A "Silver Lining" for Workers with Disabilities?

Purpose The COVID pandemic was a severe blow to all workers, but it may ultimately have a silver lining for some workers with disabilities if it makes work from home easier and more acceptable. In addition, the pandemic is shaking up traditional workplace structures and causing employers to rethink how essential tasks can be done, which may broaden their views of workplace accommodations. We assess the potential for the pandemic to improve employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Methods This article analyzes pre-COVID data on disability and home-based work from three representative data sources—the American Community Survey, American Time Use Survey, and Current Population Survey. We employ both cross-tabulations and regressions to predict work at home. Results We find that workers with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities both to work primarily from home and to do any work at home. This is true for both employees and self-employed workers. Workers with disabilities face similar wage gaps in on-site and home-based work, indicating that while increased availability of home-based work may create more employment opportunities for workers with disabilities, it is unlikely to erase wage disparities. While workers with disabilities are currently more likely to be working primarily from home, only 34% are in occupations with high potential for home-based work, compared to 40% of workers without disabilities. Conclusions Workers with disabilities are currently more likely to work from home and many may benefit from expanded work-at-home opportunities, but the types of jobs they hold constrain this potential. Research is needed to see how home-based work evolves as the economy recovers from the pandemic over the next several years.

Supplemental Material for Social Contact, Time Alone, and Parental Subjective Well-Being: A Focus on Stay-at-Home Fathers Using the American Time Use Survey

Supplemental Material for Social Contact, Time Alone, and Parental Subjective Well-Being: A Focus on Stay-at-Home Fathers Using the American Time Use Survey

Mothers' and Fathers' Well‐Being: Does the Gender Composition of Children Matter?

AbstractObjectiveThis study examines whether—and if so how—gender composition of children matters for mothers' and fathers' well‐being during parenting activities.BackgroundDespite that parents interact with girls and boys differently and spend different amounts of time with them, scholars have paid little attention to how gender composition of children matters for parental well‐being.MethodThe study assessed parental well‐being during time spent with children, across four measures of subjective well‐being (N = 16,140 activities, 8,621 parents), pooled across three survey waves (2010, 2012, and 2013) from the American Time Use Survey Well‐being Module. Random intercept models were used to account for the multilevel structure of the data.ResultsFor both mothers and fathers, gender composition of children was not associated with different levels of happiness or meaning while parenting. However, fathers reported greater stress parenting all girls and mixed‐gender children (i.e., girl/s and boy/s at the same time) compared to parenting all boys. Mothers reported greater fatigue and stress parenting all girls, compared to parenting all boys. Controlling for activity type explained some of the stress patterns.ConclusionThis study, which is contextualized in broader literature on gender stereotypes, interactional processes, and time‐use, makes several contributions to research on gender, family, and health and identifies an important factor—gender composition of children—that helps shape mothers' and fathers' well‐being while parenting.

Time spent exercising and obesity: An application of Lewbel’s instrumental variables method

This paper examines the role physical activity plays in determining body mass using data from the American Time Use Survey. Our work is the first to address the measurement error that arises when time use during a single day—rather than average daily time use over an extended period—is used as an explanatory variable. We show that failing to account for day-to-day variation in activities results in the effects of time use on a typical day being understated. Furthermore, we account for the possibility that physical activity and body mass are jointly determined by implementing Lewbel’s instrumental variables estimator that exploits first-stage heteroskedasticity rather than traditional exclusion restrictions. While averaging 30 min of transportation-related biking or walking per day lowers the BMI of men by 1.5, we find no effect of physically active leisure on the BMI of men in our sample. In contrast, 30 min of per day of either type of physical activity lowers the BMI of women by 1.

Block-Level Analysis of the Attractors of Robbery in a Downtown Area

This article examines the predictions of crime pattern theory in a unique neighborhood type. It tested potential crime attracting facilities against street robbery data from 2009 to 2013 in the Police Districts I & II in Downtown Houston. The analysis modeled the four daily human routine periods described in the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Generalized linear simultaneous negative binomial regression model was used to determine the size of the influence of the variables (beta coefficients) and their significance for each model outcome. The findings show some distinct patterns of street robbery due to the immediate and lagged effects of the variables relatable to the study environment’s unique setting. Two variables, geographic mobility, and barbershops were particularly significant across three of the outcome models. The results suggest that the physical and social structure of neighborhoods determined by land-use regulations would enhance understanding of the time-based influence on robbery patterns due to crime-attracting facilities.

Culture and gender allocation of tasks: source country characteristics and the division of non-market work among US immigrants

There is a well-known gender difference in time allocation within the household, which has important implications for gender differences in labor market outcomes. We ask how malleable this gender difference in time allocation is to culture. In particular, we ask if US immigrants allocate tasks differently depending upon the characteristics of the source countries from which they emigrated. Using data from the 2003–2017 waves of the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), we find that first-generation immigrants, both women and men, from source countries with more gender equality (as measured by the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index) allocate tasks more equally, while those from less gender equal source countries allocate tasks more traditionally. These results are robust to controls for immigration cohort, years since migration, and other own and spouse characteristics. There is also some indication of an effect of parent source country gender equality for second-generation immigrants, particularly for second-generation men with children. Our findings suggest that broader cultural factors do influence the gender division of labor in the household.

The Education Gradient in Maternal Enjoyment of Time in Childcare

Studies document large differences in the amount of time mothers spend in childcare by maternal education, even when controlling for characteristics such as income, employment hours, and work schedules. One possible explanation for this observed difference is that highly educated mothers find time in childcare to be more enjoyable. To inform this hypothesis, we examine education-based differences in mothers’ average feelings during their time in childcare using pooled data from the 2010, 2012, and 2013 Well-being Modules of the American Time Use Survey. Among all mothers, spending time in childcare is associated with higher positive feelings than is spending time in other activities. However, highly educated mothers do not enjoy their time in childcare more than less-educated mothers. Findings are robust to controls for mother fixed effects.

Do immigrants pay a price when marrying natives? Lessons from the US time use survey

Abstract We compare the allocation of time of native men and women married to immigrants against their counterparts in all-native couples using the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003–18. We find that when intermarried to a native man, immigrant women pay an assimilation price to the extent that, compared to native women in all-native marriages, they work longer hours at paid work, household chores, or both, while their husbands do no extra work. In some cases, they work for just an extra hour per day. Immigrant men do not pay such a price. Some work 34 min less at household chores than native men in all-native marriages, while the native women who marry immigrant men seem to pay a price related to their situation that would be in an all-native marriage. An explanation based on the operation of competitive marriage markets works for immigrant women, but not for immigrant men. Traditionally, gender-based privileges may allow immigrant men to prevent native women from getting a price for the value that intermarriage generates for their husbands. Such a “male dominance” scenario also helps explain why immigrant men married to native daughters of immigrants from the same region get more benefits from intermarriage than other immigrants.

The Cyclicality of On-the-Job Search Effort

Abstract This paper provides new evidence for cyclicality in the job-search effort of employed workers, on-the-job search (OJS) intensity, in the U.S. using American Time Use Survey and various cyclical indicators. We find that the probability of an employed worker to engage in OJS is statistically significantly countercyclical, while time spent on OJS of an employed job seeker is weakly countercyclical. The fear of job loss, employment uncertainty, and workers’ financial situations is crucial in the job search decision of employed individuals. The results imply that the precautionary motive might be the key driver of the countercyclicality in OJS intensity.

Converging Educational Differences in Parents' Time Use in Developmental Child Care

AbstractObjectiveThis study examines parents' time use in developmental child care by parental education and assesses whether the educational gap has widened or narrowed over the period of 2003–2017.BackgroundThe diverging trends in work hours between mothers with different levels of education since the early 2000s, along with the proliferation of the ideal of intensive parenting, suggest that education disparities in developmental child care time have likely converged, opposite to the widening trend before then.MethodUsing the 2003–2017 American Time Use Survey (N = 30,072), ordinary least squares regression models estimate minutes per day mothers and fathers with children under age 5 spend on developmental child care, after accounting for demographic characteristics, family income, and hours at work. The interaction terms between parental education and years estimate the trend in the educational gap.ResultsThe educational disparity in developmental child care has narrowed between 2003 and 2017 due to opposite trends at both ends of the educational spectrum: whereas time spent among parents with a bachelor's degree or higher has stalled, time spent among counterparts with high school or less education has continuously increased. For mothers, the converging trend is partly attributable to differential trends in hours at work by education.ConclusionIn contrast to the claim of diverging destinies, parents' time use in developmental child care is likely not contributing to diverging resources for children between more‐ and less‐educated parents.

Working at home and elsewhere: daily work location, telework, and travel among United States knowledge workers.

The mediation of work practices by information and communication technologies enables knowledge workers to telework from remote non-office locations such as their homes, or to work nomadically from multiple locations in a day. This paper uses data from the American Time Use Survey to explore the relationship between daily work locations and travel in the United States from 2003 to 2017. Outcome variables include travel duration and travel during peak periods. Home is by far the most common non-office work location, but working from other people’s homes, cafés/libraries, vehicles, and combinations of multiple locations are also measured. Findings show that working from home only on a day (full-day telework) decreases daily travel duration and increases the likelihood of avoiding peak hour travel for both work and non-work related travel. However, for homeworkers who also conduct work from their workplace on the same day (part-day telework), there is no reduction in daily travel time, and avoiding peak hour travel is limited to work-related travel. Working from other locations such as cafés/libraries or vehicles increases the likelihood of not traveling at peak hours. Findings also indicate that morning peak periods are more affected by work location decisions than evening peak periods. A survival analysis of daily departure times for both full-day and part-day homeworkers provides insight into this mechanism. We conclude on the basis of these findings that demand management policies and peak avoidance incentives would be more effective if they encourage both temporal and spatial flexibility for employees when partnering with regional employers.

Does Life Satisfaction Vary with Time and Income? Investigating the Relationship Among Free Time, Income, and Life Satisfaction.

Time and income are distinct and critical resources needed in the pursuit of happiness (life satisfaction). Income can be used to purchase market goods and services, and time can be used to spend time with friends and family, rest and sleep, and other activities. Yet little research has examined how different combinations of time and income affect life satisfaction, and if more of both is positively associated with greater levels of life satisfaction. We investigate whether life satisfaction significantly varies with time and income using data from the American Time Use Survey and its well-being module, which is a nationally representative sample of over 5000 US respondents over the age of 15. We plot a three-dimensional space exploring the relationship among time, income, and life satisfaction, finding people with similar incomes with less free time have lower levels of life satisfaction. We also identify different four subpopulations, three of which have low well-being along time and income, and one with high well-being along time and income. These sub-groups significantly differ along key characteristics. Respondents with less free time and low income-the doubly poor-are more likely to be female, less educated, and have more than two kids and young children. Those with low income but lots of time, in comparison, are more likely to be black, unemployed, and have some physical or cognitive difficult. We conclude that time provides unique insights into human well-being that income alone cannot capture and should be further incorporated into research and policy on life satisfaction.

Gender Gaps in Time Use and Labor Market Outcomes: What’s Norms Got to Do with it?

Although economists typically use efficiency gains to explain gender differences in time use and earnings, norms might also explain those differences. No study has attempted to quantify their relative influence, however. We use the American Community Survey and the American Time Use Survey to estimate an upper bound of the influence of efficiency gains relative to norms—broadly defined—using four groups of demographically matched individuals with relatively homogeneous within-group need for production. Results suggest that norms about work and home may explain 40% of the gap in time allocation for work and household production and about 60% of the wage gap. Norms about parenting may explain an additional 16 to 20% of the time use gaps and 25% of the wage gap. These findings suggest that research and policy might benefit from a grounding in a broad framework that includes both norms and efficiency gains.

The effect of working from home on major time allocations with a focus on food-related activities.

Telecommuting has been on the rise in the U.S. and working from home may affect how workers allocate their time over the course of a day. In this paper, using a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) framework, we examine differences in time spent in major activities between individuals who worked from home and away from home. We use data on prime working-age adults (age 25–54 years old) who participated in the 2017–18 Leave and Job Flexibilities Module of the American Time Use Survey. Results show that prime working-age American adults who worked from home during their diary day spent less time working and on personal care, but more time on leisure, sleeping, and on food production and consumption than those who worked away from home. For instance, among individuals with a spouse or partner present, those who worked from home spent 25 more minutes engaged in food production and 48 more minutes eating and drinking at home than did individuals who worked away from home, which are large relative to the sample averages of 33 and 31 min, respectively. These results show that there is important variation in the daily time allocation of workers in their prime working years and suggest in particular that working from home may allow for substantially more time to produce food and consume food at home, which may provide teleworkers with health benefits since home-produced meals tend to be lower in calories and higher in nutrients than meals prepared away from home.

Life satisfaction, loneliness and togetherness, with an application to Covid-19 lock-downs.

Using the 2012–2013 American Time Use Survey, I show that both “who” people spend time with and “how” they spend it affect their life satisfaction, adjusted for numerous demographic and economic variables. Life satisfaction among married individuals increases most with additional time spent with one’s spouse. Among singles, satisfaction decreases most as more time is spent alone. Additional time spent sleeping or TV-watching reduces satisfaction, while longer usual workweeks and higher incomes increase it. Nearly identical results are shown using the 2014–2015 British Time Use Survey. The US estimates are used to simulate the impacts of Covid-19 lock-downs on life satisfaction.

Parental Involvement among First- and Second-generation Latin Americans in the United States

Immigration to a host culture often involves significant changes in parenting norms and behaviors. The authors take an acculturation lens to explore parental involvement among different generations of Latin American immigrant families. It compares the quantity and type of parental involvement of first- and second-generation Latin American immigrants to that of parents who are at least a third generation in the United States while examining whether differences exist between mothers and fathers. Data from the 2003–2013 American Time Use Survey are used for our analyses, which finds differences between parenting behaviors of first-generation immigrants from Latin America and third-generation parents. Second-generation mothers were also found to be significantly different from third-generation mothers in almost every type of parental involvement, while second-generation Latin American fathers were similar to third-generation fathers in quantity and type of parental involvement.

Adolescent interactions with family and emotions during interactions: Variation by family structure.

This study examines how often adolescents interact with family members and how adolescents feel when spending time with parents, nonresident parents, stepparents, siblings, and extended family members. Adolescents respond to whom they spend time with, and how adolescents feel during social interactions with family has implications for adolescent relationships. Family structure remains a crucial dimension of heterogeneity in adolescent life, and family systems theory suggests family structure could differentially shape adolescent emotional functioning and social development due to differences in family-level contexts. However, less work has evaluated heterogeneity in social interactions and adolescent responses to family interactions stemming from variation in the home context. Using a large, nationally representative data sample of adolescents from the American Time Use Survey (N = 1,735), this study employs a within-group analysis to separately examine feelings of meaningfulness, happiness, sadness, and stress during social interactions for adolescents living in nuclear homes, single-parent homes, and stepparent homes. Results suggest adolescents in nuclear homes benefited from interactions with parents and were less affected by siblings and extended family members. On the other hand, adolescents in nonnuclear homes benefited from interactions with nonresident parents, older siblings, or extended family members, giving support to compensation models of family interactions. The study informs parents, clinicians, and policymakers designing interventions for adolescents, because it more precisely conveys information about which family members positively influence adolescent emotional responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).