Doing research with time use data

1
Doing research with time use data

• Leora Friedberg
• September 22, 2006

2
Doing research with time use data

• Leora Friedberg
• September 22, 2006

3
Why time use data?

• Lots of interesting research questions
• Comprehensive new data
• Examples of recent research

4
Research questions work

• Work in the market
• time spent in the office
• time spent getting to the office
• Work at home
• home production
• market work at home
• How does time spent on such activities relate to
  market wages?

5
Research questions kids

• Time parents spend with kids
• in relation to work status
• in relation to marital status
• Activities that parents do with kids
• read?
• watch TV?
• Is time with kids leisure or production?

6
Research questions spouses

• How spouses make time use decisions
• chores are tedious, but theyre public goods
• non-cooperative strategic interactions
• cooperative bargaining
• specialization

7
Research questions heterogeneity

• Types of leisure people engage in
• activities
• exercise go to church
• watch TV volunteer
• read smoke
• additional details
• where?
• with whom?

8
Research questions heterogeneity

• Types of home production people undertake
• activities
• cleaning
• cooking
• fixing things
• limited by
• lack of data on substitute purchases

9
Research questions responses to policy

• Response of time use to
• state policies
• taxes
• transfer programs
• changes in federal policy
• limited by small sample sizes
• n per state is still small?
• t is still small?

10
Why time use data?

• Lots of interesting research questions
• Comprehensive new data
• Examples of recent research

11
Data on time use new data set

• American Time Use Survey
• http//www.bls.gov/tus/home.htm
• first federally administered, continuous survey
  on time use in U.S.
• began in 2003
• new data is released once a year
• currently available through 2005

12
Data on time use other countries

• Similar data sets for cross-country study
• Multinational Time Use Study
• http//www.iser.essex.ac.uk/mtus/
• countries and years when time diary studies
  collected
• http//www.iser.essex.ac.uk/misoc/timeuse/informat
  ion/technical/
• International Association for Time Use Research
• http//www.smu.ca/partners/iatur/

13
Data on time use ATUS

• Sample
• number of respondents
• 2003 20,720
• 2004 13,973
• 2005 13,038
• 2003 was more expensive than they expected
• sample size was cut back in 2004, 2005

14
Data on time use ATUS

• Sample
• civilian non-institutionalized population aged
  15
• cross-sectional
• respondents are not surveyed again
• oversamples of some populations
• weekend days
• black, hispanic households
• households with children

15
Data on time use ATUS

• Sample
• linked to Current Population Survey
• random households leaving CPS are chosen
• random member of household is chosen
• one household member is surveyed, not both
  spouses

16
Data on time use ATUS

• Linked to CPS
• monthly household labor force survey
• information on other household members
• monthly supplements on other topics
• school enrollment volunteering
• displaced workers tobacco use
• fertility voting
• longitudinal component
• households are in for 4 months, out for 8, in
  for 4
• but there are tricky attrition issues

17
Data on time use ATUS

• Method of data collection
• initial contact by mail
• informational letter
• notified of assigned day of week
• telephone survey
• phoned on day after survey day, for up to eight
  weeks

18
Data on time use ATUS

• Method of data collection
• telephone survey
• asked sequentially about previous days
  activities
• what were you doing at 400 AM?
• for how long?
• then what did you do next?
• for most activities
• also asked where, with whom
• special focus on secondary child care
• no details about specific activities while
  working

19
Data on time use ATUS

• Method of data collection
• coding
• if doing two things at once, they split the
  difference
• activity codes are listed in Activity Lexicon
• three variables report coded activities
• TUTIER1CODE
• TUTIER2CODE
• TUTIER3CODE

20
Activity lexicon, without examples lexiconnoex2004
.pdf
21
(No Transcript)
22
Activity lexicon, with examples
lexiconwex2004.pdf
23
(No Transcript)
24
Activity lexicon, TUTIER1CODE
25
Data on time use ATUS

• Example
• 2005 data, weighted
• weights add up to person-days in month for
  population
• average minutes spent per day
• sleeping 514 (136)
• working 201 (255)
• cooking 23 (40)
• watching TV 155 (159)
• alone (while awake, not working) 281 (239)

26
Why time use data?

• Lots of interesting research questions
• Comprehensive new data
• Examples of recent research

27
Recent research

• Problem with non-random response?
• Abraham, Bianchi, Maitland (2005)
• variables correlated with being busy had
  insignificant, small effects on response rates
• usual weekly hours of work
• presence of children

28
Recent research

• Problem with non-random response?
• Friedberg and Webb (2006)
• sample of workers married to workers
• wives of working-men sample look very similar to
  working-women sample
• husbands of working-women sample look very
  similar to working-men sample

29
Recent research

• ATUS Early Results Conference, 12/05
• Sample papers
• Nonresponse in the American Time Use Survey Who
  is Missing from the Data and How Much Does It
  Matter? Katharine G. Abraham, Aaron Maitland
  Suzanne Bianchi
• Maternal Employment and Family Caregiving
  Rethinking Time with Children in the ATUS
  Suzanne Bianchi
• Measurement of Travel Behavior in a Trip-Based
  Survey versus a Time Use Survey Jonaki Bose
  Joy Sharp
• Here Comes the Rain Again Weather and the
  Intertemporal Substitution of Leisure Marie
  Connolly
• The Effects of Schooling on Parental Time in
  Education Production Jeff DeSimone
• Time Use for Sleeping in Relation to Waking
  Activities David F. Dinges
• http//www.atususers.umd.edu/papers/atusconference
  /index.shtml

30
Recent research

• Dan Hamermesh
• The Distribution of Total Work in the EU and
  US, (with M. Burda and P. Weil)
• Cues for Coordination Light, Longitude and
  Letterman, (with C. Myers and M. Pocock)
• The Time and Timing Costs of Market Work, and
  Their Implications for Retirement
• Time to Eat  Household Production Under
  Increasing Income Inequality, NBER 12002
• The Demand for Variety A Household Production
  Perspective, NBER 8509 (with R. Gronau)
• Stressed Out on Four Continents  Time Crunch or
  Yuppie Kvetch, Review of Economics and
  Statistics, 2007 (with J. Lee)
• Time vs. Goods  The Value of Measuring
  Household Production Technologies, Review of
  Income and Wealth, 3/06 (with R. Gronau)
• Routine, European Economic Review, 1/05
• Timing, Togetherness and Time Windfalls,
  Journal of Population Economics, 11/02
• Changing Inequality in Markets for Workplace
  Amenities, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 11/99
• Crime and the Timing of Work, Journal of Urban
  Economics, 3/99
• The Timing of Work over Time, Economic Journal,
  1/99
• When We Work, American Economic Association,
  Papers and Proceedings, 5/98
• "Sleep and the Allocation of Time," Journal of
  Political Economy, 10/90 (with J. Biddle)
• "Shirking or Productive Schmoozing  Wages and
  the Allocation of Time at Work," Industrial and
  Labor Relations Review, 1/90
• http//www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Hamermesh/TimeUs
  ePapers.html

31
Recent research

• Aguiar-Hurst versus Ramey-Francis
• A-H (2006), Measuring Trends in Leisure The
  Allocation of Time over Five Decades, NBER 12082
• We find that a dramatic increase in leisure time
  lies behind the relatively stable number of
  market hours worked (per working-age adult)
  between 1965 and 2003. Specifically, we show that
  leisure for men increased by 6-8 hours per week
  (driven by a decline in market work hours) and
  for women by 4-8 hours per week (driven by a
  decline in home production work hours).
• R-F (2006), A Century of Work and Leisure, NBER
  12264
• First, 70 percent of the decline in hours worked
  has been offset by an increase in hours spent in
  school. Second, contrary to conventional wisdom,
  average hours spent in home production are
  actually slightly higher now than they were in
  the early part of the 20th Century. Finally,
  leisure per capita is approximately the same now
  as it was in 1900.

32
Recent research

• Friedberg and Webb (2006)
• The Chore Wars Household bargaining and
  leisure time
• Do spouses bargain over leisure vs. chores?
• Identification from variation in spouses
  wages
• presumed to be correlated with threat points
• we control for household income, spouses total
  wage wiwj
• estimate impact of a spouses wage share wi /
  (wiwj)
• Sample
• married, respondent works, spouse works

33
Recent research Chore Wars

• More on identification
• how to distinguish bargaining from other effects
  of wages?
• substitution effects?
• focus on weekends, when few are working
• income effects?
• control for household income, total wages
• separability of weekend, weekday time use?
• re-estimate for sample in which both spouses
  work full-time
• specialization effects of wages?
• again, re-estimate for full-time sample
• and re-estimate for couples without children

34
Recent research Chore Wars

• Results
• very small effects of wage share on time use!

35
(No Transcript)
36
(No Transcript)
37
(No Transcript)
38
(No Transcript)
39
(No Transcript)