How do we spend our time?

Introduction

How we use our time is a key indicator of our well-being. This may sound a like a strange thing to say, but if we think about it, we are all in the pursuit of finding the right balance between work, social obligations, and leisure. As the old saying goes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Likewise, “All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy”. This association between time use and well-being makes it an essential topic of study from a public policy standpoint. However, how does one go about scientifically capturing time use patterns among a population?

This is done via surveys called “Time Use Surveys”. Typically, these surveys would ask respondents for what they did in the past 24 hours. The 24-hour time period is (typically) split into 48 half-hour time slots, and the respondent is asked what they did in each of the time slots. For example, “What did you do between 4:00 PM and 4:30 PM yesterday?”. By capturing a sizeable number of representative respondents across each day of the week, and month of a year, one can arrive at a comprehensive picture of time use patterns (that also includes the seasonal and weekly aspects of time use).

The first time use survey was conducted between July 1998 and June 1999 in India. This was just a pilot covering six states namely, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya. Later, between January 2019 and December 2019, a comprehensive national time use survey was conducted. The data from these two surveys provide us with valuable information on how time use patterns have shifted with time (and economic growth) in India.

In this article, I explore how time use patterns have evolved over time in the state of Tamil Nadu. This would provide us with an idea of what activities we prioritize and how time use has evolved over the past two decades.

Given that time use patterns vary quite substantially between genders and between urban and rural populations, it does not make a lot of sense to just summarize time use patterns across Tamil Nadu. Hence, I calculate the key metrics for Urban Women, Urban Men, Rural Women, and Rural Men separately.

There are two key metrics that I capture. The first is the participation rate of a given activity. This captures the share of the target population (say Urban Women) that spent time on the given activity. The second metric is the average number of hours spent in a week by the participants of the activity. These two metrics provide us with a clear picture of time use.

Urban Women in Tamil Nadu

We begin the analysis with Urban Women (between the ages of 25 and 60 — the core working adult population). We first look at the participation rate across a set of broad activities.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

The first thing that catches our eyes is the decrease in the participation rate of urban women in “Employment and Production of Goods for Own Use”. It should be noted that with economic growth, we would expect people to be less involved in production of goods for own use as people can afford to buy products off the shelf from the market. It is however important to note that production for own use does NOT include cooking meals/snacks, which falls under household maintenance.

Unfortunately, since the 1998–99 time use classification does not make a clear distinction between what is for employment and what is for own use, we are not in a position to quantitatively verify if the drop is due to a decrease in production of goods for own use, but this can be safely assumed.

On the other hand, the participation rate for “Household Maintenance” (including cooking) remains fairly stable across the two-decade period. With the move towards nuclear families, one may expect the share of urban women participating in care for household members to decrease, as observed.

What about the time spent per participant, how has that changed?

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

The time spent on household maintenance has dropped slightly, the major decline is in leisure and personal care activities. A closer look at leisure and personal care activities reveals that sleep is the most hit. Urban women on average had around 11 hours of sleep per day in 1998–99, this has declined to around 9 hours of sleep in 2019. Sleep in this case also includes naps.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

In terms of participation, the participation rate for relaxation, reading, and attending social events has declined substantially, while talking/chatting has substantially risen.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

For urban women, while they are spending more time in employment and learning, sleep has taken a hit.

Urban Men in Tamil Nadu

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

Like in the case of Urban Women, the participation rate for Urban Men in “Employment and Production for Own Use” has decreased. Again, this may just be due to the decrease in production of goods for own consumption. However, an interesting point is that the proportion of Urban Men participating in “Household Maintenance” has also decreased substantially. Such a similar drop was not found among Urban Women.

In terms of time spent, leisure and personal care activities (like in the case of Urban Women) have declined.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

When looking closely at the hours spent on the various leisure and personal care activities, sleep appears to be a problem again. One puzzling result is the decrease in time spent on “Mass Media and Entertainment”, which seems to be a bit counterintuitive as mass media availability has grown quite substantially over the two-decade period.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

In terms of participation rate, the share of Urban Men that read for leisure has dropped quite substantially, while the share of Urban Men consuming mass media and entertainment has risen. This increase in base for mass media and entertainment might be the reason why the average hours of entertainment consumption has fallen, as there is now a wider diversity of people consuming mass media. Like in the case of Urban Women, the share of Urban Men spending time just chatting/conversing has also increased quite substantially.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

Rural Women in Tamil Nadu

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

Unlike in the case of Urban Women, the participation rate for Rural Women for activities related to care of household members has almost remained the same. Again, like in the previous cases, the share participating in employment/production for own use has decreased.

In terms of time spent, we see an increase in volunteering and learning, while we see a decrease in leisure and personal care.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

When looking closer at the leisure and personal care activities, we again see sleep and relaxation taking a hit.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

In terms of participation, we again see a massive increase in the consumption of mass media and entertainment, while those spending time just resting/relaxing has come down quite drastically.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

Rural Men in Tamil Nadu

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

We see very similar trends as in the other cases in terms of employment and production for own use. However, the participation in household maintenance has significantly decreased.

In terms of time spent, again we see that leisure and personal care has fallen substantially.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

A deep dive again reveals that sleeping hours have fallen quite substantially.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity. The average time estimated from the data is multiplied by seven to produce weekly estimates.

In terms of participation, we again see a substantial increase in consumption of mass media and entertainment, while relaxation/resting has taken a hit.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in the appendix. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

Conclusion

In summary, we see some common patterns across the various groups. First, the participation in production of goods for own consumption has decreased. This could be a sign of economic development, as people rely more on the market for their day-to-day requirements for goods.

Second, the time spent on leisure and personal care has come down. This is primarily because of the reduction in sleeping duration. One can argue that the need for sleep/resting reduces when people are healthier, which could perhaps explain the decline.

Third, mass media and entertainment consumption has increased substantially in terms of the base of consumers. However, the average time spent on mass media consumption has come down across the board. This could either be because of the increased diversity of people consuming mass media or it could also possibly be because of the rise in on-demand content. For example, the rise in on-demand content may imply that people don’t have to listen to an hour long radio program to wait and listen to their favorite song. They can directly access the song online and listen to it. This could perhaps be the reason behind the fall in average hours spent. It could also be a background activity instead of a dedicated activity(e.g., listening to music/watching online videos while working), which is why the hours spent is lesser.

Fourth, the participation rate for men in household maintenance has come down significantly, while the same is not observed among women. Men are less involved in activities such as shopping, upkeep of dwelling, and home improvements, which are driving their decline in overall participation in household maintenance (see Appendix 1 for more details).

Most of the changes in the time use pattern seem to be in line with a rapidly developing economy, where people’s purchasing power has risen. Having said that, the decline in sleeping hours is still a little worrying. So if you are up at 3 AM reading this article, now is perhaps time to hit the bed?

Appendix 1 — Household Maintenance Activities (Participation)

Participation in home maintenance activities do not show drastic declines for women.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in Appendix 2. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in Appendix 2. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

For urban men, the participation rate in most activities (except meal preparation and pet care) has gone down (quite significantly in the cases of shopping, travel, and care for textiles), while for rural men, most participation rates (except pet care) have decreased or shown small increments.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in Appendix 2. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

The concordance between activity groups or 1998–99 and 2019 can be found in Appendix 2. If there were multiple activities performed in the same time slot, then the time is equally apportioned to each activity.

Appendix 2— Concordance Tables

The concordance table between the 3-digit activity classification codes used (at the broad activity level) is provided below:

Concordance Table — Broad Level Activity

Mapping of Leisure Activities to a harmonized description is provided below:

Mapping of Leisure Activity Codes to Harmonized Activity Description — 1998–99

Mapping of Leisure Activity Codes to Harmonized Activity Description — 2019

Mapping of Household Maintenance Activity Codes to Harmonized Activity Description

Author: Akshay Natteri Mangadu — All views are personal.