The Threefold Time Use Survey in The Netherlands: Its Inspiration from and Implications for Policy-Making.

PAPER PREPARED FOR A SEMINAR ON TIME USE SURVEYS CO-ORGANISED BY DG-EMPL AND EUROSTAT EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT

Directorate F: Social Statistics and Information Society Unit F-2: Labour market

October 12, 2006, Brussels, Belgium

Contains as yet unpublished 2005 results, not to be cited before October 18, 2006

Andries van den Broek Head research group Time, Media & Culture Social and Cultural Planning Office of the Netherlands PO Box 16164, The Hague, The Netherlands [email protected], www.scp.nl

CONTENTS:

1 THE THREEFOLD TIME USE SURVEY IN THE NETHERLANDS

2 HOW TIME USE SURVEYS CAN BE PUT TO USE 3 POLICY INSPIRATION / POLICY IMPLICATIONS

2 1 THE THREEFOLD TIME USE SURVEY IN THE NETHERLANDS

Chances of meeting someone who recently was a respondent in a Time Use Survey (TUS) in the Netherlands have increased considerably lately. In the 2004-2006 period, the Social and Cultural Planning Office commissioned three such surveys. It was able to do so through funding by ministries and scientific sources and through cooperation with other (applied) scientific agencies and with Statistics Netherlands. This paper informs about these three Time Use Surveys, one among a sample of city dwellers from five ethnic groups (n=4000), the other two among samples from the population at large (n=2200, n=1800).

DutchTUS Our tradition of a national TUS dates back to 1975. In 2005, the seventh five-yearly wave of this survey was conducted. This DutchTUS series allows for trends covering 30 years. Issues that can be addressed are, among others, the distribution of paid and unpaid work in families, the rise of multiple tasking, the decline of leisure and the changing media repertoires. The 1975-2000 data were reported on in English in: Andries van den Broek and Koen Breedveld (eds.), Trends in Time. The Use and Organisation of Time in the Netherlands 1975-2000 (The Hague: SCP). This paper contains some figures up to 2005, to be published on October 18 in a volume in Dutch: Koen Breedveld et al., De tijd als spiegel. Hoe Nederlanders hun tijd besteden (Time as mirror. How the Dutch spend their time) (The Hague, SCP) and on a website: www.tijdsbesteding.nl. The book will be available in pdf-format on www.scp.nl. DutchTUS always comprises a full week in October. Respondents record their main activities for 672 15-minutes time-slots, choosing from an elaborate list of precoded activities. Though DutchTUS yields satisfactory results on many counts, two deficits gradually came into existence. For one, its design is not straightforwardly compatible to the European standard for TUS that were developed towards the end of the last century, which hinders international comparisons. Secondly, the scope of the sample does not allow making comparisons of time use between ethnic groups. Those ethnic groups are too small, at least from the point of view of their presence in nationwide samples of approximately 2000 respondents. To cope with these setbacks, two additional TUSs were embarked upon.

HETUS Throughout 2006, a TUS that follows HETUS-guidelines is conducted in the Netherlands. This makes direct international comparison possible. Moreover, linking the 2005 DutchTUS to the 2006 HETUS style measurement opens up possibilities to relate the earlier Dutch data to data in other European nations. Conducting both DutchTUS in 2005 and HETUS in 2006 was expensive. It is not intended to repeat both in five years time. Which one will be continued will be decided later.

EthnoTUS The research among five ethnic groups (Turkish, Moroccan, Antillean and Surinamese, and an indigenous reference group) was conducted because in many fields a lack of knowledge about these groups started being recognized. This TUS enables comparisons of time use between ethnic groups, concerning inter alia the distribution of paid and unpaid work in families.

This paper presents some core results from DutchTUS and EthnoTUS (section 2) and then informs about the policy inspiration and policy implications of conducting TUS (section 3). After all, without policy interest, no single TUS had been possible in the Netherlands.

3 2 HOW TIME USE SURVEYS CAN BE PUT TO USE

TUS provides rich information about the day-to-day lives of people. Data about a given moment in time allow for many comparisons between groups, for instance a comparison of media use of young and less young people or a comparison of paid and unpaid work by men and women. Not only the duration but also the timing of activities can be analysed, by comparing weekdays to weekend days or mornings to evenings. From a policy perspective, such comparisons may draw attention to either inequalities between groups or to rush hours in time, issues that may or not be taken up to be policy issues.

The data become all the richer once trends can be assessed. It then becomes possible to assess whether things are changing or not. This illuminates how macro-societal changes affect the daily lives of people. Moreover, this can give clues to whether new policy issues are perhaps emerging and whether actual policies are successful in effecting the results hoped from them.

What follows now are some illustrations of the possibilities opened up by such ‘intimate’ information about the daily lives of people. The policy relevance of that information shines through here, but will be highlighted afterwards.

In the Netherlands, as in other countries, TUS is not the prime source of labour market statistics. Those root in different surveys. DutchTUS is, however, the prime source of information about unpaid work. This being so, it also is the prime source of information about the combination of paid and unpaid work. Outside the domain of obligatory time, DutchTUS is the prime source of information about personal time and leisure time.

Did busyness increase? Yes, over the past decades the Dutch have become a more busy lot (figure 1). Leisure time has been on the decline, obligatory time (paid work, unpaid work, education) has increased. In comparison, personal time (sleeping, eating, personal hygiene) has remained rather stable.

The driving force behind the increased busyness is that more paid work is being done. This is not due to longer working hours, but to higher rates of labour market participation, which in

4 turn can fully be attributed to increased labour market participation of women. Was this greater effort at work by women compensated in the private household?

Did men become more involved in housekeeping? Yes they did (figure 2), although the slope of this increase has less of an angle than the increase in paid work by women, from 18% with paid work in 1975 to 53% in 2005 (not in this figure). The role of women in care tasks was reduced somewhat, though women still spend three times more time on care tasks than men.

Is the division of tasks uneven for all more specific housekeeping tasks? Yes it is (figure 3). In addition, a similar distribution holds for child care.

5 In terms of equal distribution of tasks, the glass can be seen as half full or as half empty, the trend as satisfactory or way too slow. These kinds of evaluation, of course, are political ones. Anyhow, TUS data offer such political estimations an empirical basis, making the debate a more informed one.

Do more people face the burden of multiple tasking? The answer, again, is yes (figure 4). Moreover, a gender division has emerged. Since 1995, task-combination has increased more swiftly among women than among men.

Are we moving towards a 7-days / 24 hours society? By no means (figure 5): only little work is done on Sundays, on weekday evenings and during the night.

6 The main change here is that increasing percentages of adults are at work during daytime on weekdays, which reflects the increased labour market participation of women. This reinforces rather than erodes existing regularities in the way time is being spent. At the same time, this also gives rise to new temporal bottlenecks: if more people work during the day, who does do the shopping and who takes care of the children?

Do people watch more television? No, 2005 marks the first year that the time spent watching television was on the decline, mostly the time spent watching broadcasts on the public channels. Within a constant (leisure) time budget for media use, the computer was on the rise, especially the internet. Among teenagers, using the computer for leisure already is as big as watching television (app. 8.5 hours per week each). Watching public broadcasts among teenagers has dwindled to less than one hour per week. Among the population as a whole, and among the young in particular, reading has declined a lot since 1975.

Do people reduce travel time? No, travelling time increased considerably since 1975, from 6.6 hours per week in 1975 to 9.1 hours in 2005. Travelling for care tasks and for leisure both grew one hour per week. Leisure mobility comprises 40% of total mobility (even without holidays!). Second biggest is care tasks mobility, commuting to and from work comes third.

The HETUS-style TUS in the Netherlands is in the field throughout 2006. So no data can be given yet.

EthnoTUS focused on five ethnic groups (Turkish, Moroccan, Antillean and Surinamese, and an indigenous reference group). It consists of a one hour interview, the last ten minutes being devoted to a reconstruction of activities during daytime (06.00-24.00 hours) the day before, using 15 minute intervals and based on 43 precoded activities. In the questionnaire, people were asked about perceptions on time, among many other things.

Do people from immigrant groups have a different perception of time than the indigenous Dutch? Only partly so, while the differences found are hard to interpret (table 1). Note that socio-demographic characteristics are controlled for, in order to focus on cultural differences.

7 Table 1: Views on time, by ethnicity, controlled for socio-demographic differences, city dwellers aged 15- 65, percentages that agree / fully agree with statement Indigenou Turks Moroccans Surinamese Antilleans s “I plan my activities beforehand” 69 65 70 68 64 “I couldn’t do without a watch” 46 48 46 52 49 “I always run out of time” 42 43 47 41 44 “I want to decide when I do something” 88 87 91 91 89

“I have a clear picture of my life 5 years from now” 31 31 37 39 41 “I live now and don’t think much of the future” 34 41 33 37 42

“It annoys me if someone is 15 minutes late”‘ 57 56 58 50 64 “For many things I have a fixed moment” 61 64 61 57 55

“It is okay that shops are open on Sundays”‘ 66 74 66 60 36 “Shops and services should open longer hours” 57 61 47 46 29 Percentages printed in bold-italics where differences between ethnic groups are statistically significant (p<.05) Source: SCP (Life Situation of Ethnic City Dwellers 2004/2005)

Notions that there might be differences in the propensity to plan activities beforehand or in the importance of punctuality are not supported by these results. Neither do the ethnic groups differ in the extent to which they have the feeling to run out of time or the desire to determine the timing of activities. Taken together, the absence of differences here runs counter to the idea of a difference between a more tight and a more loose time regime in daily life. In four other respects, differences do occur, but no clear image. Turks and Moroccans report less of a clear view of life in five years time. Moroccans and indigenous Dutch most of all say to live in the present. The ‘new Dutch’, Moroccans especially, report fixed moments for fixed activities, which might relate to religious schedules of saying prayers. Yet this does not point at a greater preoccupation with the agenda among the ‘new Dutch’, since they care somewhat less about adhering to appointments made. One issue clearly demarcates a cultural difference: opening hours of shops and services. The ‘new Dutch’ are happier about shops opening on Sundays and more often think that opening hours of shops and services should be extended further.

Apart from the preferences regarding opening hours, no clear differences in the perception of time between ethnic groups could be established. Does that mean there are no differences in time use between ethnic groups? Here we turn to TUS-data proper again. The answer is no, though for this answer the variety of activities were summarized into four main categories: obligatory, personal, leisure and travelling time (table 2). Again, socio-demographic charac- teristics are controlled for, in order to let cultural differences come to the fore. The data refer to weekdays and Sundays. As only few interviews were conducted on Sundays and as the TUS-component here was a yesterday-recall-interview, information on Saturdays is lacking in these data. On Sundays, no cultural differences in how time was dispersed over those four main categories were found to exist. The same holds for weekdays, with the apart from some differences in personal time.

8 Table 2: Time use on Sundays and weekdays between 06.00 and 24.00 hours, by ethnicity, controlled for socio-demographic differences, city dwellers aged 15-65, hours per day Turks Moroccans Surinamese Antilleans Indigenous Sundays (n=142) (n=123) (n=135) (n=147) (n=132) obligatory time 3,5 4,1 3,8 3,3 3,1 personal time 6,8 6,5 6,3 6,4 6,2 leisure time 7,1 6,8 7,1 7,3 7,8 travelling time 0,6 0,6 0,8 0,9 0,9

Weekdays (n=499) (n=452) (n=416) (n=458) (n=423) obligatory time 6,2 6,1 6,0 6,1 6,7 personal time 4,9 5,1 5,0 4,7 4,4 leisure time 5,9 5,7 5,8 6,1 5,7 travelling time 1,0 1,1 1,2 1,1 1,2 Percentages printed in bold-italics where differences between ethnic groups are statistically significant (p<.05) Source: SCP (Life Situation of Ethnic City Dwellers 2004/2005)

Closer analyses will reveal whether or not more differences in time use exist at the level of more specific activities, or perhaps in terms of the timing of activities. At this general level, in the meantime, no such differences were found, suggesting that time use follows a general human pattern rather than specific cultural patterns.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, TUS-data are well geared to report about day-to-day activities, but less so to report on activities undertaken less frequently. There, the aid of a questionnaire is needed. 3 POLICY INSPIRATION / POLICY IMPLICATIONS

The results presented above clearly have policy implications, at least if policy makers or politicians want them to. Before highlighting which results are important for which fields of policy, it is fair to say that without interest in TUS by policy makers, no TUS would exist in the Netherlands in the first place. The policy inspiration behind TUS is revealed first.

Policy inspiration The present DutchTUS-series originates from a research into media use in the Netherlands conducted in the 1970s. This research was set up as a TUS, though focusing on media use in leisure time only. In 1975, this design was extended to a full scale TUS, then covering all activities and the whole of a week (earlier and also simultaneously, different TUSs were conducted in the Netherlands, most notably by Statistics Netherlands, but these differed in design and did not result in such long term time-series). From the 1975 TUS fieldwork onwards, funding has been provided by various parties, partly academic, partly private and partly public. At the outset, private and public media agencies were interested and funding. In various years, universities took part. Throughout the years, ministries became more interested in TUS and more important in funding it. The 2005 DutchTUS and 2006 HETUS, organized and promoted as one single effort, were funded by SCP, by some ministries and by a large grant from an academic institute. Statistics Netherlands helped by providing the sample for 2005 DutchTUS for free. Three ministries participated in funding this joint TUS effort: the ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management (through its Transport Research Centre), the ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, and the ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. As will be addressed in some more detail in the next section on policy implications, these ministries were interested because of issues relating to mobility, issues relating to combining paid work and

9 care tasks, and issues relating to sports and volunteering. Indirectly, the ministry of Education, Culture and Science supports TUS, as TUS data are used in a long-term project on media use and cultural participation funded by that ministry. In 2000 the Ministry of Economic Affairs joined in, because at that stage there was an interest in documenting the effects of more flexible shop opening hours. Those hours had been extended in 1996, so a 1995-2000 TUS comparison proved a convenient manner to assess the extent to which people started to use of the new possibilities to go shopping on weekday evenings and on Sundays. In addition, in 2005 two SCP-like agencies from within the public administration co-funded TUS. These are the Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency and the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research, both interested primarily in mobility patterns and related activities, more specifically in the environmental respectively the spatial aspects of behaviour.

In the case of EthnoTUS, ministries were indispensable too. In this case, policy making more clearly inspired the effort, as it started happening more and more often that a ministry turned to SCP to ask for information on ethnic groups regarding a policy domain, for instance media use, cultural participation, division of tasks in households, child care arrangements, mobility or volunteering. Similar questions came from the press and originated out of our own research interests. We then decided within SCP to propose these ministries to launch a new survey to cover these and some other issues. This approach was successful, as a number of ministries not only agreed that is was an interesting effort but also agreed to contribute to funding it. Again, Statistics Netherlands provided the sample, based on register information. It is fair to say that TUS here was secondary to the questionnaire as such, still, TUS is an integral part of the ‘Life-Situation of Ethnic City Dwellers’-project. Five ministries participated in funding this project because it covered topics they were interested in (table 3). Table 3: Ministries and their topics in EthnoTUS Ministry Topic of interest Transport, Public Works and Water Management Mobility

Health, Welfare and Sport Sports participation Volunteering, especially care for parents

Social Affairs and Employment Use of and views on child care arrangements Division of housekeeping tasks

Education, Culture and Science Media use Cultural participation

Justice, Immigration and Integration No TUS interest Source: SCP

In the process of gaining the interest and financial support of policy-makers, a pro-active role was, and has to be, taken. Interest in and funding of research don’t fall out of the sky just like that. But our experience clearly has been that it is possible to convince policy makers that TUS is a valuable source of information for them. After all, despite or thanks to its general nature, TUS-data can be used to address many policy issues, from shop opening hours to child care, from division of household tasks to mobility, from media use to doing sports, and from volunteering to paid work. The next section contains a more detailed overview of where TUS- data are used to inform policy makers about their policy field. For this section, the conclusion is that it is well worth a try to convince policy makers of the value of TUS.

Policy implications

10 This final section briefly mentions some policy issues for which TUS data in the Netherlands are held to be relevant. This relevance is not just a matter of our hopeful expectations, but is, as will be illustrated, ‘evidence based’.

Care share Probably the most visible of policy implications of DutchTUS is the policy objective (part of the emancipation policy, ministry of Social Affairs and Employment) regarding the male ‘care share’. TUS figures on the share of men and women in domestic tasks led to policy objectives aimed at promoting a greater care share of men. In fact, the actual policy target is even formulated in terms of the percentages calculated on the basis of TUS. Naturally, therefore, TUS figures are the main source for assessing the extent to which this policy target is being achieved. The male care share was 35% in both 1995 and 2000. This was considered to be too low. The policy target based on these figures reads that the male care share should be 40% by 2010 (in order to make it easier for women to have paid work). In the Emancipation Monitor published towards the end of 2006, the TUS2005 male care share will be published. That percentage will give a clue as to whether the target of a 40% male care share by 2010 is likely to be met.

Effects of increased paid work on households and on childcare Less directly connected to a concrete policy target, but of policy relevance nonetheless are figures on the effects of increased labour market by women, in society at large and in private households in particular. The extent of multiple tasking, i.e. combining considerable paid work with considerable care tasks, of men and women is among these figures. The degree to which child care by parents is affected is among the issues addressed on the basis of TUS.

11 Media use and media wisdom As mentioned above, DutchTUS originally started off as media research. It still is a major source of media use in the Netherlands, as it allows to study trends and patterns in reading print media, watching television/DVD, listening to radio/audio, and using computer/internet. The combined diary and questionnaire information of DutchTUS is among the prime sources of information on each of these separate media uses. It is the prime source for studying the use of various media interrelatedly, as well as for doing so in the broader perspective of wider trends and patterns in (leisure) time. This informs policies on reading and on watching public television, two things policy seeks to enhance. In addition, DutchTUS is especially relevant to the question which sources of information people use and to the related issue of media wisdom, which is centred around the question whether people sufficiently understand the logic of the media they use. An agency interested in local and regional information and media use funded some additional data gathering regarding these issues. EthnoTUS informs about media patterns of ethnic groups, distinguishing their use of Dutch versus ‘own’ media. This can be related to their participation in and view on Dutch society. Also, differences between newly immigrated people versus people that grew up in the Netherlands will be assessed.

Mobility and sports In the fields of mobility and of sports, TUS is not the prime source. It is recognized, however, as a valuable additional source providing background information, since wider behavioural patterns can be linked to mobility patterns and sports (non)participation.

Volunteering DutchTUS is among the main sources on volunteering. In the past, the more specific themes of whether increased labour market participation of women and of people aged 50-65 affects voluntarily taking care of others were addressed on the basis of TUS. EthnoTUS serves the purpose of shedding some light on volunteering among ethnic groups. A new phenomenon in the Netherlands is the growing old of people from ethnic groups. It is uncertain to what extent people do and will to take care of their parents as those grow old, with clear implications for the need for and capacity of professional elderly care.

Ergo To sum up, TUS can benefit from policy inspiration and TUS can have policy implications. The optimum seems to be that policy makers and researchers alike realise both their mutual interest and their distinct roles. Policy makers need valid information. In order to provide this, researchers need funds for research and independence in their research. With respect to TUS in the Netherlands, this optimum appears to have been approached quite closely. Next Wednesday, October 18 2006, the results of TUS2005 will be launched. This happens in a meeting where our director summarizes our results and presents our report (the book and the website www.tijdsbesteding.nl) to the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment. This event can be taken to exemplify the recognition on both sides of TUS’s inspiration in and implications for policy making. For us at SCP, who take the lead in organizing the funding for TUS, thinking in terms of what about TUS might be of interest to policy makers is a well-internalized attitude. TUS doesn’t talk policy relevance itself. We as researchers have to make an effort to make clear how TUS can be of value to policy makers. So far, this attitude has helped us to keep TUS going.

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