Volume 5, Number 2
October 1999

Whose Work and Whose Leisure? Time Use and Overlapping Activities of Men and Women

The time people spend on overlapping activities has received little attention in economic analysis. Most time-use studies have looked only at primary activities, ignoring the fact that individuals often perform two or more tasks simultaneously. While using time allocation data about eight years ago, Maria Sagrario Floro noticed that lactating women were recorded as devoting less than two hours a day to breast feeding. Since this is insufficient time to sustain lactation, Floro realized that women most likely were doing other work while breast feeding: overlapping activities were an overlooked aspect of time allocation.

People’s engagement in multiple tasks raises issues for measuring time allocation and well-being. A correlation may exist between "multitasking" and quality of life. Researchers need to know which individuals perform multitasking and why they choose to overlap activities. If people engage in simultaneous activities frequently, then measurement of domestic work or child care or other unpaid activities may underestimate the time spent on these activities.

Overlapping activities may also have policy implications. For example, one could measure economic activities and changes in them to determine the impact of the Asian economic crisis. People may intensify their work during a crisis.

To study overlapping uses of time, Floro used a two-adult household subsample from a 1992-93 time-use survey of Australian men and women 15 years and older. The data on average time spent on economic activities showed marked gender differences. While women spent 34 percent of their time on primary activities related to labor-market work, men spent 60 percent of their time on such activities. Women spent 97 percent of their time on household work as a primary activity and men 81 percent. The figures were 41 and 23 percent, respectively, for the time women and men spent on child care as a primary activity. A good deal of child care showed up as a secondary activity. Overall, women spent most of their time on household activities, and men on labor-market activities.

Data on leisure activities also brought out qualitative gender differences: women mainly engage in leisure as an overlapping activity rather than an exclusive activity. Floro suggested that social and cultural factors--shaping men to work monochronically and women to work in overlapping fashion, for example--probably influence multitasking rates.

Further analysis of the data showed that (1) gender contributes to the increased incidence of overlapped activities; (2) higher education levels are associated with increased overlapping; (3) the presence of younger and older children leads to increased overlapping; (4) speaking English in the household means that greater overlapping occurs; and (5) higher household income means a decreased incidence of overlapping.

In response to a question asking if one could look at multitasking as an effort to produce extra time, Floro said that time allocation choices indeed are more complicated than most models and studies would suggest. Time allocation choices are not simply about tradeoffs between one activity and another. In the Third World, individuals may not be able to choose between paid or unpaid work, but rather between kinds of work they have to do together. Aside from such conceptual problems, Floro noted that good time-use surveys are hard to come by because they are very costly and time-consuming to undertake.

Another participant noted that overlapping activities may not be just for lower income groups even though the Australian data show this to be the case. The reverse may be true—for example, the availability of laptops and faxes leads to the mixing of work with leisure. Floro suggested that this could be tested with an interaction variable.

An audience member asked why overlapping decreases as incomes rise, but increases as levels of education rise. Floro said that one possible answer is that more education may lead to higher standards (such as the desire for a cleaner house) and the desire to act on the "time is money" adage. She would welcome further studies on this issue.

Responding to Floro's approach, one participant suggested that an analysis that focused more on output may provide a better framework for studying overlapping uses of time. The concept of "joint production" might be useful to explore for the tasks that have to be done—some tasks are more amenable to overlap, like child care and food preparation.

Another participant expressed an interest in stress levels resulting from overlapping activities, noting that Arlene Folkshaw's work shows people choosing to go to work in order to "escape" from the stresses of tasks at home. Floro replied that it is important to look at the issue in other than the Australian context. Anthropological and sociological studies, for example, describe women street sweepers in India who bring their children to work. The children might turn to begging, but that may be because they have extremely limited options.

Floro concluded that the policy implications of overlapping activities are immense. In the United States, for instance, social security reform focuses on this issue among others.