Conferences

Since the first time-use research project by Alexander Szalai in the 1960s a number of conventions with regard to the methodology of time budget research have been established. Subsequently, time budget research has evolved to be an established research method. Nevertheless, time budget surveys used different methodologies depending on the moment of recording the information, the number of recorded dates, the coding of the activities, the recording of secondary activities and the respondents that are approached.

EUROSTAT is developing initiatives on a European scale to streamline time budget surveys from various individual countries. With this objective in mind EUROSTAT established the HETUS-survey in the early 1990s. Statistics Belgium gathered time-use data in 1999 and in 2005 according to EUROSTAT guidelines.

In this paper we want to focus on the unit of analysis. Most time-budget data sets are organized on an individual level. However, some data sets, as the EUROSTAT micro data sets, include more than one individual of the same household. More specifically, all members of the household 12 years or above (in Belgium) asked to register their activities. Since it would not be surprising that members of the same household share the same values, behaviour and attitudes that could effect time-use, analyses on the level of households risk ‘intra-household correlation’. Also the fact that people of the same household spend time together could lead to biases in time-use estimates on the individual level. In this paper we want discuss this method of collecting time-use information and the use of it. We prepare some simulations using a multilevel technique to make the consequences of this methodological option visible.