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13 Future Directions Wendy E. Pentland and Andrew S. Harvey

Time use methodology provides a powerful tool for understanding a wide variety of social, psychological, and economic issues. In recent decades, it has become an important, internationally accepted instrument in the study of production, progress, and quality of life. This book exposes readers from a variety of disciplines to the basic concepts and applications of time use methodology so that they can then apply them to answer research questions in their own fields. The book has illustrated, with examples, the breadth of applications possible with time use methodology and provided basic guidelines for the planning and execution of time use studies and data analyses. The intent in this final chapter is to place time use research in the context of current international social and economic research, and to highlight future research directions in applications, theoretical development, and methodological issues.

OVERVIEW The need to understand human time use is significant. As the world populations' standards of living rises and increasing material needs are

Wendy E. Pentland • Division of Occupational Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Therapy, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada K7L, 3N6.

Andrew S. Harvey • Department of Economics, St. Mary‘s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 3C3.

Time Use Research in the Social Sciences, edited by Wendy E. Pentland, Andrew S. Harvey, M. Powell Lawton, and Mary Ann McColl. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 1999.

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met through the expansion of production, individuals are faced with the major reality that the ultimate scarcity is time. An individual’s time is a finite—though unknown—quantity. In light of that realization, the need to understand time use begins to rival the need to understand money. Consequently, there is a need to advance understanding of time use and appreciate its importance in understanding both social and economic processes.

World societies are undergoing radical transformations in both structures and behaviors as a result of numerous dynamics. Substantial numbers of women have entered the paid labor force, with simultaneous growth in two-career families and part-time work. In many developed countries, there have been marked increases in numbers of unattached persons and single-parent families. Complex reactions to rising public debt and explosive growth in technology have unleased government and corporate initiatives aimed at streamlining and tightening. These are dramatically impacting the structure of industry., services, jobs, and human behaviors. The world has embraced technology that permits almost instant communication from even the most remote places and spawns dynamic global economies. In many developing countries, foreign aid has introduced technologies and lifestyles that are impacting traditional ways of life. Each of these changes, in its own way, has profound societal implications. Transformation of an individual's labor market involvement resulting from these changes also means transformation of home and social life. There is growing recognition of the need to measure the impact of these changes in terms other than simply money, since production equal to 50% of the GNP may be produced outside of the market as nonpaid or subsistence work. Time use is the key tool for capturing this information on production that does not enter the market. Time use methodology permits both detection and exploration of these behavioral changes, both in the societal (macro) and individual (micro) environments.

Macroapproaches to time use provide insights into the overall use of time by society and its constituent subpopulations. They provide an accounting of how time is used and how that use is changing. Essentially, macroapproaches encompass the social accounting dimension of time.

Microapproaches, on the other hand, are aimed at reflecting and understanding individual behavior and how it is manifested in and affected by time use. Failure to consider the potential use of time use data for both macro- and microanalysis can sharply reduce the usefulness of the data.

To evaluate social and labor market behavior, and the impact of change on an individual’s integration of work and personal life, it is necessary to examine allocation of time among competing uses at both the macro- and microlevels, and to understand individual's interpretations of

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that allocation. Based on a survey of time use researchers, Artimov (1992) suggested several topical problem areas that need to be addressed. The macroissues included social and economic time-based accounting, time allocations across subpopulations such as youth and the elderly, relationships between time use and social development, trends in time use, crossnational comparisons of time use, and forecasting changes in time use.

Examples of microlevel issues that need study are differentiation in the use of time and its dynamics; attitudes toward time and its value; relationships between time in work, leisure, and health in social space; interactions between time, money, and goods; and household production and the gender division of labor.

A major challenge facing the field of time use research is to clearly show its usefulness in guiding policy. Time use researchers must increase their awareness of policy issues that are addressable with time use data, and their ability to present such data in a manner that will be useful to policymakers. Furthermore, given the nature of current social and economic issues and areas needing research, there is a need for all disciplines in the social sciences to be aware of time use methodology as a potential research tool, and to refine and standardize its application so that all disciplines can use and build on the information generated. This will enable effective and rich interdisciplinary collaborative investigations that are necessary to understand many of the complex issues. There is also a need for better interdisciplinary dissemination of time use research. While the methodology is internationally recognized, it needs to be made more universally available to researchers through publication, presentation, and instruction during graduate education.

APPLICATIONS Numerous chapters in this book have illustrated a variety of existing applications of time use methodology, including understanding cultures (Whiteford & Barns, Chapter 10), age groups (Lawton, Chapter 5; Ujimoto, Chapter 11), specific roles (Tindale, Chapter 7), subpopulations (Pentland & McColl, Chapter 8) and the influence of context on activity (Michelson, Chapter 4). As the social and economic changes outlined earlier impact on behavior, there will be increasing need to understand, predict, and anticipate social and economic needs, services, and policies. This section briefly outlines additional issues where the application of time use methodology has or would be useful.

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Understanding Subpopulations Many subpopulations have unique needs and issues that must be thoroughly understood before relevant planning or intervention can occur.

Time use methodology is an invaluable tool for teasing out behavior and factors influencing behavior. It is also an invaluable way to establish outcomes by detecting the degree and nature of changes in behavior.

Examples of applications in this are are virtually endless. Some examples are included here. Persons with disabilities can be examined with regard to their degree of social and economic integration in society and factors that impede or facilitate this integration. There is a need to understand the shift in roles and activities of the elderly and its impact on a micro- and macrolevel. With increased pressure to maintain those who are ill or disabled in the home, the role of caregiver will be more and more common. The caregiving role is stressful and needs to be well understood before caregivers can be supported effectively.

As mothers move into the paid workforce, questions around time allocated to child care and its value have arisen. Time use methods have been shown to be useful with regards to describing and quantifying this role. Frederick (1993) assessed the validity of four various estimates of child care collected in the Canadian general survey on time use. She found that a good proxy for estimating total child-care activity is the social contact time with children that can be derived from the " who with" question on at time diary.

A subpopulation with huge potential for the application of time use methodogy is that of women, particularly issues related to the macro- and microimpacts of their assuming paid work. The few studies that have been conducted in this area suggest that when women assume paid work, it is superimposed on their traditional roles of unpaid work. Todorova (1995) compared Bulgarian time use studies between 1977 and 1988, and found that women's time for unpaid work is increasing, while for men, it is decreasing. Similar trends have been noted in Japan (Otake, 1994), Spain (Duran, 1994) and Hungary (Sik, 1994), suggesting that for every hour of paid work provided by a woman, she provides two hours of unpaid work, and that a basic inequality between the sexes exists (still) in the allocation of time to paid versus unpaid work. In this way, time use methodology reveals the impact on women of their assuming paid work, as well as resistance to change of inequitable and discriminatory practices in family relationships. Time use methodology has been used to measure how obstacles arising from women's family responsibilities can lead to social disadvantage (Bittman, 1993). Currently, important international time use studies are in progress, aimed at allocating and valuing unpaid work by

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women (United Nations International Research and Training Institute for Women [INSTRAW], 1995) in both developing and developed countries.

Specific Activities In many instances, there is a need to answer questions related to when, why and in what way humans participate in specific activities, as well as to detect the impact of particular stimuli on activity participation.

Time use studies may have a valuable role in the development of travel demand models that are capable of addressing current and emerging policy analysis and decision-making needs. The impact of behavior on travel demands was examined by Spittje (1994), who found that a compressed (to 4 days) work week resulted in a significant decrease in traveling.

One often reads predictions in the media that the new technologies will save much time at work and at home, and create a " leisure society."

Longitudinal studies using time use methodology can be ued to assess trends such as these. For example, time use studies compared between 1972 and 1993 revealed that the total work load of working people increased and spare time decreased (Artimov & Gvozdeva, 1992). Similar findings were obtained through longitudinal studies in Holland. Between 1975 and 1990, despite the reduction in official working hours, people betwee the ages of 20 and 50 currently have less leisure time than they did 15 years ago (Knulst & Batenburg, 1993). Leisure time appears to be squeezed by developments whereby the various commitments have together come to absorb more time per person.

Psychological Dimensions of Behavior Time use data can be a valuable tool in understanding the pyschological dimensions of behavior, since they have the capacity to generate subjective and contextual information about activity participation. Glorieux (1992) used the time-budget method to explore dimensions of alienation.

He conluded that social isolation leads to alienation, and argued that although work is an important link between the individual and the public world, other social ties appear important for protection against alienation.

With regard to the impact of the birth of a child, Sanik (1993) has examined that relationship between time allocation and stress for mothers and fathers. Lawton (1998) has used time use methodologies to understand psychological aspects of aging. Ujimoto (1998) notes the importance of capturing subjective as well as objective data when studying the daily activity patterns of caregivers and care receivers, and Michelson (1983) has noted their value in studying childcare.

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Context of Activities The environment, both physical and social, influences activity patterns. Time use methods can help one to tease out the nuances of these influences and then use the knowledge to make changes or modifications to influence activity participation where desired. Procos and Harvey (1977) show its relevance to local planning. Michelson (1988) examines the usefulness of time use methods in exploring how the design of residential space impacts everyday behavior. The integration of diary information that includes the contextual aspects of behavior, such as location and social contact, has been labeled "activity settings" (Harvey, 1982). Activity settings are probably the least understood and most underused analytical opportunity provided by time-diary data.

THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES As with any tool that is used by individuals with different backgrounds, frames of reference, goals, and perspectives, time use research has been adapted and applied in a variety of ways across a variety of disciplines, including economics, statistics, anthropolgy, psychology, and planning. The potential richness of these combined perspectives in exciting. But in order that time use research be maximally useful across disciplines, investigators have a responsiblity to consider and consult various theoretical and methodological aspects.

Theoretical Issues One of the strengths of time use data and research is that it is relevant and useful to a broad range of disciplines. But here, too, lies a weakness that needs to be addressed. There is a need, where possible, for agreement and consensus on concepts, methodology, analysis, and reporting. As a rudimenary example of how various interpretations of the same data can be misleading, researchers and individuals may classify work, leisure, and personal care differently. For example, when coding, what may be work to one may be leisure to another, or even personal care to a third. Furthermore, a given individual may classify an activity differently depending on the day and the context. Even if agreement cannot be reached, and in some cases different viewpoints are imperative, researchers must be explicit about their terminology.

A related theoretical issue that always needs to be considered and at least clarified in each instance is the classification of activities. The Canadian General Social Survey data follow a classification system similar to

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that used by occupational therapists when classifying humans' occupations; self-care, productivity, and leisure (Statistics Canada, 1993). Rigbers (1994) proposes another system. of activity classification: necessary activities (bounded time), activities due to agreements (contracted time), activities due to attention (committed time), and activities due to preference (free time). In this way activities may be classified differently due to underlying social relationships and diverse social circumstances. Classification systems are especially important for comparability within and between studies, such as cross-national or cross-group comparisons.

Coding and classifying activities across cultures needs to be faced and discussed before cross-national comparisons can be meaningful. There have been discussions and attempts to establish a multinational coding scheme (Harvey & Niemi, 1994), but while the need is there, it is a problematic area due to cross-cultural variations in meaning and interpretion of activities. Even within the same culture, time and activities can be viewed and coded differently by different groups. Niemi (1993) examined a variety of data collection methodologies in Finland and noted that the most important activity measurement errors arose when different population groups spoke "different languages." She also noted that activities that stand out from other activities are much easier to measure than activities that blend with other activities.

Another example of different theoretical perspectives is the use of time budget data to measure well-being. Gershuny (1994) presents two different approaches. One is the "national income extension" approach, which places money values on activities that take place outside the money nexus. The other, somewhat less familiar, is the " process-benefit" approach, which attempts to evaluate the individual’s satisfaction with daily activities. Gershuny’s point is that the two approaches should be used together when analyzing consequences of economic growth.

Other theoretical issues that need to be addressed relate to the differences in the perception and meaning of time itself across cultures. Time budgets, by definition, tend to be a developed-nation phenomenon in that they use minutes as their unit of measurement. Time is not necessarily perceived this way in cultures where watches are not worn and the day is measured by other markers, such as focal events themselves, or by tides, or the movements of the sun. This issue is addressed in more detail in Chapter 10 when examining the Maori view of time in New Zealand.

Methodological Issues As more countries conduct censal time use surveys, longitudinal perspectives on time use are possible. This permits impact information and

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the detection of such changes as way of life, work structure, and integration of subpopulations such as the elderly and persons with disabilities.

Data collection issues that have a bearing on current and future research in the area include computer-assisted interviewing, the influences of sampling and diary design on outcomes, and the need for a better understanding of the mechanics and problems associated with time use data collection. Computer-assisted interviewing and electronic diaries, although presently having high front-end expenses, may offer advantages related to data collection speed and reliability, and well as reducing data coding and entry errors and costs. Geurts and DeRee (1993) examine both the effect of sample design—in terms of number of days sampled—on the standard error of time use estimates, and the effect of diary design on the reported daily activity pattern. They find that the design of the diary affects the pattern of activity starts over the diary, an effect that must be considered in the analysis stage.

The importance of capturing contextual data has been discussed previously. In addition to its objective characteristics (e.g., time spent engaged in the the activity), time use has subjective dimensions as well. These include who the subject was with, where, what else was being done (secondary activities), whether the activity was done by choice or obligation, and the individual's satisfaction with doing the activity (process benefits). These may not be obvious to the observer or analyst, but they need to be captured. Harvey (1993) notes that time use methodology appears fairly robust, at least at the level of reporting major time allocation estimates. However, he points out that the robustness exists primarily at the macrolevel, the level at which much of the existing time use analysis has been carried out. But if time use studies are to play a growing analytical role at the micro (contextual) level, there is a great need for in-depth and rigorous methodological work.

The discovery and development of new analytical approaches are crucial if the full richness of time use data is to be utilized. Descriptive analysis has become relatively straightforward. However, there is a need to develop methods of analysis that permit examination of the activity pattern as a multidimensional unit. In other words, rather than taking time use apart into units of work, leisure, sleep, and self-care, for example, there is a need to understand how these components could be kept together through the analysis. Analytical approaches need to be applied, recognizing that activity durations are not independent, since they are all a proportion of 24 hours; hence, problems can arise if any inferential statistics are desired. Ideally, time use " patterns" would be able to be used in multivariate modeling to determine inferential relationships among behavioral, contextual, and demographic characteristics. There is relatively little work in this area.

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In summary, time use methodology is an exciting, dynamic, and broadly useful tool for the measurement and understanding of human behavior. It is hoped that this book has given the reader a basic appreciation of its nature and applications, and will stimulate new and creative applications in a variety of disciplines.

REFERENCES Artimov, V., & Gvozdeva, G. (1992). Work time of the West Siberian population: Structure and trends. In. N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research. Amsterdam: NIMMO. Artimov, V. (1992). Questionnaire results from participants in the 1989 Vama Seminar. It’s about time.

Bittman, M. (1993). Australians changing use of time, 1974–1987. Social Indicators Research, 30, 91–108.

Duran, M. (1994). Time-use research in Spain. In N. Kalfs & Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research. Amsterdam: NIMMO. Frederick, J. (1993). Measuring child care and sleep: Some results from the 1992 Canadian General Social Survey. Ottawa: Statistics Canada.

Gershuny, J. (1994). Time use, quality of life and process benefits. In N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research. Amsterdam: NIMMO. Geurts, J., & DeRee, J. (1993). Influence of research design on time use estimates. Social Indicators Research, 30, 245–250.

Glorieux, I. (1992). Social interaction and the social meaning of action: A time budget approach. Social Indicators Research, 30,149-152.

Harvey, A. S. (1982). Role and context: Shapers of behavior. Studies of Broadcasting, 18,69–92.

Harvey, A. S. (1993). Time use studies and a tool for macro and micro social analysis. Social Indicators Research, 30, iii–vii.

Harvey, A. S., & Niemi, I. (1994). An International Standard Activity Classification (ISAC): towards a framework relevant issues. In N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research. Amsterdam: NIMMO. United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW). (1995). Measurement and valuation of unpaid contribution: Accounting through time and output. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Institute for Research and Training for the Advancement of Women.

Juster, F. T. (1985). Preferences for work and leisure. In F. T. Juster & F. P. Stafford (Eds.), Time, goods and well-being (pp. 333–351). Ann Arbor: Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan.

Knulst, W., & Batenburg, R. (1993, June). Social and cultural trends in the Netherlands: Results of four comparable time budget surveys covering fifteen years. In N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research (pp. 275–290). Amsterdam: NIMMO. Michelson, W. (1995). Using episode data to explore substantive issues. Statistics in Transition, 2(4), 637–644.

Michelson, W. (1983). Childcare and the daily routine. Social Indicators Research, 23, 71–83.

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Niemi, I. (1993). Systematic error in behavioural measurement Comparing results from interview and time budget studies. Social Indicators Research, 30, 229–244.

Otake, M. (1994). Relative shares of paid and unpaid work-performedby men and women, and calculated cost of unpaid work by women in Japan. In N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research Amsterdam: NIMMO. Procos, D., & Harvey, A. S. (1977). Modelling for local planning decisions. Ekistics Oikietikh: The Problems and Science ofHuman Settlements, 44(264), 257–266.

Rigbers, A. (1994). Hard facts and soft data: The crucial role of reasonable concepts in empirical research on time use. In N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research Amsterdam: NIMMO. Sanik, M. M. (1993). The effects of time allocation on parental stress. Social Indicators Research, 30,175–184.

Sik, E. (1994). Paid and unpaid work in Hungary. In N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research. Amsterdam: NIMMO. Spittje, H. (1994). The influence of the compressed working-week on travel behavior in the Netherlands. In N. Kalfs & A. Harvey (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fifteenth Reunion of the International Association for Time Use Research. Amsterdam: NIMMO. Statistics Canada (1993). Initial data release from the 1992 General Survey on Time Use. Ottawa: Author.

Todorova, R. (1995). Repeated time-use studies and their possible application in a state of their transition: The case of Bulgaria. Statistics in Transition, 2(4), 627–636.