THE USE OF TIME BY MEN AND WOMEN IN PORTUGAL Heloísa Perista Ana Cardoso Ana Brázia Manuel Abrantes Pedro Perista Title The Use of Time by Men and Women in Portugal Authors Heloísa Perista Ana Cardoso Ana Brázia Manuel Abrantes Pedro Perista Publishers CESIS – Centro de Estudos para a Intervenção Social Av. 5 de Outubro, 12-4º Esq. 1150-056 Lisbon CITE – Comissão para a Igualdade no Trabalho e no Emprego Rua Américo Durão, 12A - 1º e 2º andares, Olaias 1900-064 Lisbon Design and page layout Diagonaldesign, Lda ISBN 978-972-8399-81-8 Place and date of publication Lisbon, September 2016 This is a publication of the research project “National Survey on Time Use by Men and Women” (Inquérito Nacional aos Usos do Tempo de Homens e de Mulheres, INUT), carried out from October 2014 until September 2016 by the Centre for Studies for Social Intervention (Centro de Estudos para a Intervenção Social, CESIS) in partnership with the Commission for Equality in Labour and Employment (Comissão para a Igualdade no Trabalho e no Emprego, CITE), and funded by the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism, EEA Grants, Programme Area PT07 – Mainstreaming Gender Equality and Promoting Work-Life Balance. Funded by the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 THE USE OF TIME Heloísa Perista BY MEN Ana Cardoso Ana Brázia AND WOMEN Manuel Abrantes Pedro Perista IN PORTUGAL THE USE OF TIME BY MEN 03 AND WOMEN Table of contents IN PORTUGAL 1. Introduction 5 2. Methodology and sample characteristics 9 The questionnaire 9 The interviews 12 Characterisation of the sample 12 Glossary 19 3. Me time 23 Introduction 23 To have or not to have time, that is the question 24 The quality of free time 37 The content of free time 45 4. Family time 57 4.1. Household chores and care work 58 Introduction 58 Household chores and care work – shared times? 59 Multitasking and simultaneous activities 79 Externalising household chores 80 Perceptions of fairness/unfairness concerning the distribution of household chores 84 Provision of care to adult persons in need 88 4.2. Motherhood and fatherhood 95 Introduction 95 Who cares for the children? 96 Caring for the children – shared times? 106 Parental responsibilities and paid work 115 THE USE OF TIME 04 BY MEN AND WOMEN IN PORTUGAL 5. Paid working time 125 Introduction 125 People who sell their time for paid work 126 Time spent on paid work 127 The ‘lost steps’ of home-work and work-home trajectories 130 Time and organisation of paid work 133 Employment: permanence or instability? 137 Total working time of men and women 139 And what about those unable to sell their time? 141 The desired paid working time 144 Interpenetration of paid work and family and personal life 146 Factors impacting on paid and unpaid working time: an attempt at a multidimensional model 156 6. Conclusions and recommendations 161 6.1. Main research conclusions 161 What changes, and what remains, between 1999 and 2015? 167 6.2. Final Conference of the INUT Project: conclusions and recommendations 169 7. References 177 THE USE OF TIME BY MEN 05 AND WOMEN IN PORTUGAL 1. Introduction Speaking about time is speaking about the uses we make of time. Because after all, if philosophically we can conceive time as an abstraction unrelated with the subjects living it, time as a psychological category is only existential, or, as María Ángeles Durán says, “something we live, rather than something that lives us” (Durán, 2013: 21). But time is also “a human invention” (Daly, 2002: 2). As an expression of a way of thinking and representing the social structure, the meaning of time is far from neutral; it encompasses a means of measuring and quantifying, but also qualifying, that is, attributing value to human activities. The subjective experience of time is a fundamental dimension. Time is lived in a subjective manner by each person, by each man and by each woman, thus time is gendered (“a gendered time”, in the words of Jane Pillinger, 2000). That is, the meanings of time are marked by gender. Women and men bestow different values and senses on time, in a process conditioned by responsibilities, resources, positions and statuses. Time is therefore a key topic for structuring our thought and intervention in the field of equality between women and men. (cf. Perista, 2014, our translation) It was on the basis of the above premises that we have conducted our study on time use by men and women in Portugal, the main results of which are now presented in this book. Time use, and in particular the relationship between paid and unpaid work, has been widely debated among the scientific community, also with the contribution of various international organisations. A major reference is owed to the United Nations (UN), through its World Conference on Women held in Nairobi in 1985 and especially the Beijing Platform for Action approved at the 4th UN World Conference on Woman in 1995, which defines time use as one of its priority intervention areas. The International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Foundation for improving Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND) have also carried out relevant initiatives in this field. As far as the European Union (EU) is concerned, it should be underscored that the Eurostat promoted in the mid-1990s the development of a harmonised model for time use surveys which led to about twenty studies being conducted in different EU member states, including Portugal. Internationally, time use is a field of statistical enquiry and research with a long and consolidated tradition, in some cases dating back more than a century. In Portugal, it was only in the 1980s and 1990s that a perspective of time use analysis was first considered in some studies on the distribution of household tasks and childcare. Some of those studies were of academic nature and most of them had a limited scope of application, namely with regard to territorial coverage; other studies were public initiatives undertaken within the body then designated as Directorate-General of the Family (Direcção-Geral da Família). THE USE OF TIME 06 BY MEN AND WOMEN IN PORTUGAL This field of work and reflection has been consolidated over the last twenty years at the Centre for Studies for Social Intervention (Centro de Estudos para a Intervenção Social, CESIS), since in 1996- 1997 the (then called) Commission for Equality and Women’s Rights (Comissão para a Igualdade e para os Direitos das Mulheres, CIDM) promoted the project “European Union Policies for Equality – Elaboration of new assessment indicators” (Políticas para a Igualdade da União Europeia – Elaboração de novos indicadores para a sua avaliação) (CIDM, 1997). Time use was one of the areas identified by the CIDM for proposing new indicators, the work in this domain being ensured by the CESIS. In 1999, the Commission for Equality in Labour and Employment (Comissão para a Igualdade no Trabalho e no Emprego, CITE), then headed by Maria do Céu da Cunha Rêgo, decided to become an active partner of Statistics Portugal (Instituto Nacional de Estatística, INE) for the purposes of the Survey on Time Use (Inquérito à Ocupação do Tempo, IOT); the CESIS provided expert consultation in this process. It was only at that time that greater visibility was granted to the subject of time management between paid work in the context of the labour market and unpaid work in the context of the households. The outcome of the ensuing work, carried out by a team of the CESIS under an agreement with the CITE, gave rise, among other things, to a publication entitled “Gender and unpaid work: women’s times and men’s times” (Género e trabalho não pago: os tempos das mulheres e os tempos dos homens – Perista, 2002). Those results, based on the first official statistical source in Portugal allowing an analytical approach to time use, confirmed and provided evidence of the sharp asymmetry that persisted, and still persists today, in the distribution of unpaid work between women and men. The conclusions of that study were widely disseminated and contributed to fuel the public debate, as well as to substantiate policies promoting equality between women and men and a better conciliation of working, family and personal life. Today, more than sixteen years later and following the same path, it is with great satisfaction that we are able to draw an updated and nationally representative diagnosis of time use by men and women in Portugal, particularly with respect to paid work and unpaid care work, based on the results of the research project “National Survey on Time Use by Men and Women” (Inquérito Nacional aos Usos do Tempo de Homens e de Mulheres, INUT). This project started in October 2014 and ended in September 2016; it was carried out by the CESIS in partnership with the CITE and funded by the European Economic Area Financial Mechanism, 2009-20014 EEA Grants, through its Programme Area PT07 – Mainstreaming Gender Equality and Promoting Work-Life Balance. Preliminary results were presented at the Final Conference of the project on 28 June 2016, together with the publication of the Policy Brief (Perista et al., 2016). The aim of the Conference was twofold: to disseminate the knowledge and to share and jointly reflect on the findings about gendered time use as summarised in the Policy Brief. Through a participatory model, namely with parallel sessions focusing on the various key themes under analysis, the conference granted us the opportunity to collect contributions from all of the participants (more than one hundred, with diverse profiles and experiences) in order to draw up a set of public policy recommendations.