Time use diary design for our times - an overview, presenting a Click-and-Drag Diary Instrument (CaDDI) for online application

Oriel Sullivan, Jonathan Gershuny, Almudena Sevilla, Pierre Walthery, Marga Vega-Rapun

The recent global pandemic, involving restrictions on movement, social distancing and the displacement of many work activities to the home, has created an upsurge of interest in changes in the distribution and sequencing of our daily activities. Time use diary data is recognised as the leading source of evidence on this topic. The purpose of this paper is to provide a timely overview of the current state-of-the-art in respect of the designs of time use surveys with a view to online/smartphone deployment. It has three parts: firstly, we briefly summarise the main reasons for using diaries to collect time use information (as opposed to survey questions), and we sketch out the long tradition of time-use research from which these designs emerged. We then outline the main methods currently deployed to collect time use data, with the focus on online and smartphone app instruments. Finally, we present a detailed example of a specific kind of online diary design, the Click-and-Drag Diary Instrument (CaDDI), that may be of particular interest in respect of the sudden demand for new data on time use as it is both user-friendly to complete and capable of timely adaptation and deployment.

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The multidimensionality of poverty: Time poverty in Spain

Margarita Vega-Rapun, Mónica Domínguez-Serrano, Lina Gálvez-Muñoz

In the last few years the concept of poverty has evolved from simply being a measure of income poverty to a multidimensional measure that takes into consideration essential aspects for the attainment of certain levels of wellbeing. This paper assesses how the incorporation of time can contribute to the measurement of poverty. To this end, we reviewed the time poverty literature and focused on the Spanish case. We use the Spanish Time-Use Survey 2009-2010 to analyse time poverty in Spain, and estimate a probit model to assess the probability of being time poor in Spain and identify key factors associated with time poverty in Spain.

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Balance in time use and life satisfaction of older people in Korea

Jiweon Jun

This paper explores the relationship between the way older people use their time and well-being in later life in Korea, applying the ‘life balance framework’. This framework was developed to examine how patterns of time use change across the life course in terms of the balance between constraints (constrained time), freedom of choice (discretionary time) and time spent on biological maintenance (regenerative time), this paper illustrates how the time use of Korean people aged 65 and older varies by gender, age, and economic activity status. Using data from the 2014 Korean Time Use Survey, the study shows that the balance in time use in Korea shifts towards having greater discretionary and less constrained time in later life as shown in previous studies in other countries such as the UK, yet with a considerably larger gender gap which persists even in very old ages. More importantly, the study found a negative relationship between having too much discretionary time and older people’s level of life satisfaction, which supports the assumption of the life balance framework that having too much free time can also be detrimental to well-being.

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Measuring children’s time use: Insights from mixed-methods research in northern Uganda

Lucia A. Rost

Time-use data can provide important insights into children’s lives, but measuring children’s time use can be challenging. Building on mixed-methods data collection in northern Uganda, this paper discusses and proposes ways to address the following issues: (1) whether to interview parents or children; (2) capturing simultaneous and interconnected activities; (3) addressing issues of unequal power relations and inhibition; and (4) unpacking longitudinal dimensions. This paper calls for more research to address these and other challenges involved in measuring children’s time use.

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