Time-use Analysis Research Articles

Eating practice models in Spain and the United Kingdom: A comparative time-use analysis

The time dedicated to eating is changing. Although a tendency towards the homogenization of eating habits has been confirmed, the scarcity of comparative studies means that it is impossible to know whether the variations are occurring equally or with the same intensity in all countries. In this study, time dedicated to eating and cooking in Spain and the United Kingdom is analysed. Questions are asked regarding the decline in eating at home and the fragmentation of meals. An analysis is made whether different social groups behave in a similar way with regard to the time spent eating and to what extent the changes affect some groups more than others, generating greater social differences. In order to do this, official Spanish and British time-use surveys are used, and the data from two different time periods are analysed using multivariate techniques. In both countries, signs of convergence are detected, although the speed of change is different. Despite the convergence, the results also show that the changes in eating habits are not linear and are affected by moments of intense social transformation. Phenomena such as the economic crisis in the case of Spain affect the society and impose specific eating habit trends, generating new forms of social differentiation.

Delivering services to incarcerated teen fathers: A pilot intervention to increase the quality of father–infant interactions during visitation.

The absence of a father figure has been linked to very poor developmental outcomes for the child. During incarceration, there are limited opportunities for visitation between fathers and their children. The Baby Elmo Program provides incarcerated teen fathers with parenting training and visitation with their children with the stated goal of enhancing father-child interactional quality. Forty-one incarcerated teen fathers and their infants ranging from 1 to 15 months of age participated in the present study. During individual sessions, a trained facilitator prepared fathers for visits with their children by introducing key concepts such as following the child's lead, using developmentally appropriate media to illustrate those concepts. After each training session, the incarcerated teen father interacted with his infant and the visit was video recorded. Analysis of the visit sessions focused on father's time use on different activities, the quality of father-infant interactions, and father's integration of target skills introduced in the intervention. The time-use analysis revealed that time use changed as a function of infant age. Growth linear modeling indicated that there were significant positive increases in the amount of parent support and infant engagement as a function of the number of sessions. Follow-up analyses indicated that changes between specific sessions mapped onto the target skills discussed during specific training sessions. This study's preliminary findings suggest that an intervention integrating visitation and appropriate media may be effective for incarcerated teen fathers. Due to the lack of a randomized control group, the present findings are exploratory and are discussed with a focus on further program development.

Class, gender and time poverty: a time‐use analysis of British workers’ free time resources

Free time, that is, the time that remains at one's own discretion after conducting daily work and personal care activities, has been previously recognized as a 'primary good' and an important welfare resource that provides opportunities for participation in social life and leisure. However, recent years have witnessed an increasing preoccupation with the phenomenon of time poverty, drawing attention to the distribution of free time and its relationship to structural and family circumstances. In this article we propose a novel approach to the measurement of time poverty and document its occurrence amongst British workers. In line with previous literature, a conceptualization of time poverty as a relative lack of free time resources vis-à-vis other members of the community is adopted. However, unlike previous empirical studies, we investigate the differential configuration of time poverty on weekdays and weekend days, alongside indicators of the quality of free time, taking into account insights from theoretical and empirical work within the field of the sociology of time. Our analysis of the 2000 UK Time Use Survey highlights class and gender inequalities that have been missed by previous measurement approaches and demonstrates that, overall, working women experience multiple and more severe free time constraints, which may constitute an additional barrier for their leisure and social participation.

Exploring the organization of daily life among women with disabilities in Belo Horizonte, Brazil: perspectives of functionality and temporality

Time is a fundamental instrument of orientation for social life, and it is closely intertwined with both public and private spaces and the resources contained therein. The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the organization of daily life among women with disabilities in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, from the perspective of temporality. Results were obtained by a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, using a sample of 50 women with physical/motor disabilities. They self-reported difficulties when walking and/or climbing stairs. The analysis of time use by individuals with disabilities revealed six main types of activities associated with daily life: personal care, paid work, studying, housework, free time, and travelling from one place to another. The results reveal that although the daily lives of these women are hampered by their functional limitations, their lives are also directly influenced by their physical and social contexts and their attitudes.

A New Framework for Time-Use Analysis

Do Americans spend more time watching TV and shopping than do Britons? If so, then where does the additional time come from? In this study, we present evidence that aggregate time-use comparisons are potentially misleading, because they ignore differences in sample and population composition that directly affect how people plan their daily lives. These aggregate comparisons are also potentially misleading because they do not take into account the highly censored and sparse nature of time-use data as well as the fact that we all work on the same budget of 1440 minutes each day. For these reasons, we propose a framework for time-use analysis that provides insights into how demography and geography affect the value people assign to time spent on the various activities of daily life, while taking into account the unique features of time-use data. We use this framework to compare how Americans and Britons differ in their time-use, after accounting for other demographic and geographic factors affecting the value of time.

Comparative Analysis of Time-use in a Planning Perspective: Results from Research Developed under the Framework of NOITe Project

Comparative Analysis of Time-use in a Planning Perspective: Results from Research Developed under the Framework of NOITe Project

Time Use of Mothers and Fathers in Hard Times and Better Times: The US Business Cycle of 2003-10

The US economic crisis and recession of 2007-09 accelerated the convergence of women’s and men’s employment rates as men experienced disproportionate job losses and women’s entry into the labor force gathered pace. Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data for 2003-10, this study examines whether the narrowing gap in paid work over this period was mirrored in unpaid work, personal care, and leisure time. We find that the gender gap in unpaid work followed a U-pattern, narrowing during the recession but widening afterward. Through segregation analysis, we trace this U-pattern to the slow erosion of gender segregation in housework and, through a standard decomposition analysis of time use by employment status, show that this pattern was mainly driven by movement toward gender-equitable unpaid hours of women and men with the same employment status. In addition, gender inequality in leisure time increased over the business cycle.

Joint Analysis of Time Use and Consumer Expenditure Data

Estimating the value of time is of considerable interest to transportation professionals charged with evaluating infrastructure investments. Two approaches used to calculate the value of time are the microeconomic utility theory approach and the structural equations modeling method. In an effort to clarify the interpretation and the relationship between the values of time derived from these two approaches, both models were applied to a synthesized data set of one-person, one-worker households created by merging records from the 2008 American Time Use Survey data set with records from the 2008 Consumer Expenditure Survey data set of the United States. The microeconomic model results show that people in the sample data set work until the marginal utility of work is nearly zero. This finding implies that the value of leisure is nearly equal to the wage rate. Comparisons of model parameter estimates between the microeconomic model and the structural equations model suggest that the models offer vastly different measures of the value of leisure. Although the microeconomic model offers a utilitarian measure suitable for computing user benefits, the structural equations model provides a much smaller value of leisure, implying that it is a measure of the willingness to pay as represented by the average relationship between monetary expenditure and time allocation.

Primary Analysis of Time Use

Primary Analysis of Time Use

An annual time use model for domestic vacation travel

Vacation travel in the USA, which constitutes about 25% of all long-distance travel, has been increasing consistently over the past two decades and warrants careful attention in the context of regional and statewide transportation air quality planning and policy analysis, as well as tourism marketing and service provision strategies. This paper contributes to the vacation travel literature by examining how households decide what vacation travel activities to participate in on an annual basis, and to what extent, given the total annual vacation travel time that is available at their disposal. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive modeling exercise in the literature to undertake such a vacation travel time-use analysis to examine purpose-specific time investments. A mixed multiple discrete-continuous extreme value (MDCEV) model structure that is consistent with the notion of “optimal arousal” in vacation type time-use decisions is used in the analysis. The data for the empirical analysis is drawn from the 1995 American Travel Survey (ATS). The results show that most households participate in different types of domestic vacation travel over the course of a year, and spend significantly different amounts of time on each type of vacation travel, based on household demographics, economic characteristics, and residence characteristics.

Changes in the Practice of Eating

This article examines changes in aspects of the eating habits of the populations of five countries between the early 1970s and the end of the 1990s. Time-use diary data provide the main evidence, which is subjected to techniques of statistical description and regression analysis. The study of France, UK, USA, Norway and the Netherlands shows considerable national variation in patterns of food preparation, eating at home and eating out. Each of these components of the practice of eating is examined for indications of whether there are any tendencies towards dedifferentiation within countries or convergence across countries. There are some common patterns across countries, notably a decline in the amount of time devoted to food preparation. Time spent on eating at home reduces in all countries except France. In the USA, time devoted to domestic food preparation and consumption is minimal. Internal differentiation shows continuities — of gender divisions and age-related behaviour — but also new emergent tendencies — with the presence of children and levels of cultural capital becoming significant predictors of behaviour. It is maintained that the analysis of time-use provides a useful framework for comparing practices in different countries and that the variation revealed might best be understood in terms of different modes of institutionalization of consumption.

Fathers–participation in the domestic activities of everyday life

In this paper, the data from the multi-purpose survey on household ‘Time Use–conducted by Istat (the Italian National Statistical Institute) in 2002–003 and the data from this same survey conducted in 1988–989 will be analysed with the purpose of describing the fathers–daily participation in the domestic activities and of highlighting the changes that have taken place during the 14 years elapsed between the two survey editions. The analysis will be carried out using standard time-use data analysis–tool, time budget tables and by applying a multi-variate regression model with the objective of separating the relative contribution of the behavioural and structural factors to explain the variation observed.

Working Conditions and Time Use

What we do when we get home is influenced by what we do at work. In this article I analyse the relationship between market work and domestic activities from the perspectives of economic theories of time use, i.e. the work–leisure model (compares income work versus other activities) and the household production model (compares income work and household work), and sociological theory treating the issue of how leisure activities compensate for work strains. The empirical analysis of time use is based on the Norwegian time-use survey from 2000–2001. Estimates on working conditions are based on the Norwegian level of living surveys from 1996 and 2000 for 100 occupations found in both surveys. The analyses indicate that both physical strains and low autonomy at the place of employment lead to an allocation of time away from paid work towards unpaid work and leisure, but with considerable differences for men and women. The findings indicate that working conditions are part of the trade-off between paid and unpaid work, and that leisure activities may compensate for human needs being neglected in the workplace.

Caregiver‐Specific Outcomes in Antidementia Clinical Drug Trials: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

To describe the range of caregiver-specific outcomes and approaches to their study within antidementia drug trials and to quantify the effect of cholinesterase inhibitors on burden and active time use of caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Systematic review of English-language publications and unpublished reports of antidementia clinical drug trials that included caregiver-specific outcomes. Study characteristics and methodological quality were summarized. Random effects meta-analyses were conducted for the outcomes of caregiver burden and active time use. Community. Informal caregivers of participants in clinical trials of antidementia drugs. Burden, time use, psychological well-being, healthcare costs, and ease of use of or satisfaction with intervention. Seventeen studies involving 4,744 subjects were identified. Four trials (n=1,594) met criteria for inclusion in the burden analysis, and six trials (n=2,286) met criteria for inclusion in the time-use analysis. Most investigations involved drugs now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of AD; donepezil was the most frequently studied intervention in the set of studies. Methodological quality varied across trials. The weighted average effect sizes were Cohen's d=0.18 (95% confidence interval (CI)=0.04-0.32) and d=0.15 (95% CI=0.07-0.24) for the outcomes of caregiver burden and time use, respectively. Cholinesterase inhibitors have a small beneficial effect on burden and active time use among caregivers of persons with AD. Recommendations to enhance the quality and interpretability of AD clinical trials that involve caregiver-specific outcomes are presented.

施設の居住環境が高ADL高齢者の生活行為に及ぼす影響 : 居住者の自己記録および歩数・運動量記録計データに基づく生活時間の分析

This paper aims to clarify influences of institutional living circumstances on behaviors of the aged with high degree of ADL by analysis of time use in an institutional living comparing at home. For it, we utilized the records of time use filled in by themselves and the data by steps and walking rate recording device. A conclusion is as follows. Uniformly providing meals lead them to increase time of passive behaviors instead of behaviors related to meals, and it could deprive them of opportunities of hobbies or communications. Choices of activities, which depend on the support system including living circumstances, bring active behaviors.

Exploring the relationship between urban form and nonwork travel through time use analysis

This paper presents an activity-based time-use analysis of the relationship between urban form and nonwork travel. Using data from the 1991 Activity–Travel Survey in Boston, the study tested the role of spatial accessibility as a composite measure of urban form in explaining individuals’ nonwork activity participation, travel times, and travel frequencies. The results showed varying effects of modifying spatial accessibility on nonwork activity participation and travel among different activity categories. When accessibility to schools improved, children and adults were found to pay more visits to and spent more times in schools yet without generating additional total school travel. However, for every standard deviation increase in accessibility to entertaining, recreational, eat-out, and other social opportunities, the odds were 1.23 times greater to engage in these activities than staying at home. In contrast, the odds were 0.79 for them to spend time in chauffeuring family members. There was a substitution relationship between work commute and nonwork travel when levels of accessibility changed. An increase in accessibility by 1 standard deviation was associated with a decrease in work commute by 2.23 min, but increases in travel times for social activities by 2.07 min and for shopping travel by 1.20 min. The increase in social travel was due to more frequent trip making resulting from higher accessibility. Findings from the study underscore the importance of physical planning and design to improve spatial accessibility and to help divert the additional social travel induced by accessibility improvement to nondriving modes.

Examining large-scale time-use files through graphic representation

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of graphic means to add to the comprehension of time-use analysis. The paper traces the development of several graphic approaches, from the logic of plotting a single case in multidimensional space to several ways of examining time-use dynamics graphically without limitations on sample size. It draws on pilot studies from the FAMITEL research project on telecommuting and extends to Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey in 1998 with time-use data (GSS12). The examples of graphic development focus on aspects of the daily lives of teleworkers, to illustrate in this context how graphic representation can illuminate much-discussed differences between the complex pattern of daily life characterizing of these workers in comparison to conventional workers, regardless of the size of samples and subsamples. The graphic techniques discussed advance understanding of these phenomena by presenting visual evidence of differential patterns reflecting the interrelations between the several components of time-use as well as reflecting the different times in the day in which phenomena occur, within and between analytic subgroups. As in many other analyses, gender can be literally seen in the graphics as an important differentiating factor, even within occupational situations.

Timing, togetherness and time windfalls

With appropriate data the analysis of time use, labor supply and leisure can move beyond the standard questions of wage and income elasticities of hours supplied. I present four examples: 1) American data from 1973 through 1997 show that the amount of evening and night work in the U.S. has decreased. 2) The same data demonstrate that workers whose relative earnings increase experience a relative diminution of the burden of work at unpleasant times. 3) U.S. data for the 1970s and 1990s demonstrate that spouses' work schedules are more synchronized than would occur randomly; synchrony among working spouses diminished after the 1970s; and the full-income elasticity of demand for it was higher among wives than among husbands in the 1970s but equal in the 1990s. 4) Dutch time-budget data for 1990 show that the overwhelming majority of the windfall hour that occurred when standard time resumed was used for extra sleep.

Utility-Maximizing Model of Household Time Use for Independent, Shared, and Allocated Activities Incorporating Group Decision Mechanisms

Existing activity-based models of transport demand typically assume an individual decision-making process. The focus on theories of individual decision making may be partially due to the lack of behaviorally oriented modeling methodologies for group decision making. Therefore, an attempt has been made to develop a new model (called the g-Logit household time-use model) for time-use analysis that incorporates group decision-making mechanisms. To do that, it is proposed that household utility function be defined in the form of multilinear utility function, which can represent interactions among household members and interactions among their activities (four types of activity: in-home, out-of-home independent, allocated, and shared). By introducing this household utility function into the time allocation approach, each member’s time-use functions for different types of activities are obtained. The function for independent activities has a structure similar to the one for allocated activities, except the weight parameters are different. In contrast, the time-use function for shared activities has a completely different structure, which results from the complicated processes and strategies for household decision making. The effectiveness of the proposed model is confirmed with activity-travel diary data.

Positive Affectivity, Self-Mastery, and a Sense of Failure as Predictors of Self-Assessed Health

The study was part of the Jyvaskyla Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development. The participants (145 females and 147 males) were mailed a Life Situation Questionnaire at ages 27 and 36. This included a Personal Control Inventory as well as questions about their satisfaction with intimate relationships, leisure time, housing, occupation, work situation, and livelihood as well as about their sense of control over life events. Three groups of variables emerged from their responses: positive affectivity (satisfaction with life, contentment with one's achievements), a sense of failure (low self-worth, accusation of others), and self-mastery (self-confidence, social support, control over life events). A single-item self-assessment of health was elicited at ages 27 and 36, and the 12-item General Health Questionnaire was administered at age 36 to study psychological distress. The results (tested by LISREL 7.2) showed that long-term positive affectivity was directly related to good self-assessed he...