A NOTE ON TIME USE STUDIES

1. Time is the measure of various forms of change, motion and activities. Time Use Studies/ Researches have been used throughout the 20th Century, for measuring the activities of human individuals in various parts of the world, with the aim of understanding the social life of people, on the basis of the patterns of their time use. Time Use Studies produce an empirical data-base, leading to some theoretical perspectives that help analyze hitherto uninvestigated or less-investigated social and economic phenomena and, help generate corresponding policies. 2. Time Use Studies or Time Budget Studies arose out of the 19th century practical and theoretical interests in the working hours, leisure time and, life styles of the working class of the industrial revolution, that was then unfolding in Western Europe [see: Engels, F. 1845 in the Bibliography]. From 1913 till about the second half of the 20th Century Time Use Studies were mainly focused on the distribution of time across daily activities and, that of the leisure time of certain specific social groups, like the industrial workers, farmers and service sector workers. It may be mentioned in passing, that the first Time Signal sent around the World was broadcast from the Eiffel Tower of Paris, in July 1913; that the first time use study came out in the USA also in 1913; and that Count Helmuth von Moltke of Germany used Standard Time to put into effect his war plan in 1914. Thus the emergence of World Standard Time and, that of Time Use Studies appear to be simultaneous. The first exhaustive large-scale study of 24-hour time budgets of the workers of Moscow was carried out by S.G. Strumilin in 1924. 3. By the middle of the 20th Century Time Use Studies were taken up in the more industrialized countries like the U.K., U.S.A., U.S.S.R., France and Japan. In the 1950s-1960s Time Use Research became more frequent and widespread, often involving large governmental and non-governmental statistics gathering organizations. The most important event of the 1960s was the Multinational Time Use Study conducted in 16 sites of 13 countries, under the direction of Alexander Szalai. A larger number of countries undertook such studies in the 1960s-1980s. The new entrants in this period included: Bulgaria, Canada, Poland, Hungary, South Korea and Ivory Coast. During the 1990s the reach of Time Use Research was extended to Italy, Sweden, Norway, Israel, Austria, Australia, Germany, Dominican Republic, New Zealand, South Africa and India. 4. In India, at first some small scale Time Use Studies were taken up by individual scholars and kindred research groups. Then, from July 1998 to June 1999 a pilot survey was conducted by a Technical Committee set up by the Department of Statistics of the Government of India, in the six states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Meghalaya, Tamilnadu, Haryana and Orissa. 5. Time Use Studies are poised for a tremendous upsurge all over the World. This coincides with the real time connectivity of global finance, stock exchanges and, business process related services in the present century. 1

6. Our daily, weekly, monthly and yearly time use cycles increase or decrease our capacities, and hence determine our life-chances, help shape our social and economic position. What we do with our time determines who we become. A desired balance of work time and leisure time is a basic desideratum both for individual and for social well-being. 7. Time use indicators help map the supply and demand of labor and leisure; have implications for national accounting practices and, for understanding the structure, function, and dynamics of social advantages and disadvantages of the different generations, genders, tribes, castes and classes of our societies. Time measurements provide a basis for integrating the multifaceted phenomena of paid and unpaid production and consumption in complex and multiform societies, into a general framework, that may help understand the processes of change affecting our socio-economic ground realities. 8. Historically, the increasingly more and more fine-tuned measurement of the time parameters of natural phenomena (like, durations, frequencies, cycles, rates of change, simultaneity, sequences etc.) has been of great importance for the development of the natural sciences. The emergence and development of Time Use Studies have created conditions for similar development of the social sciences. Under present day conditions of accelerated socioeconomic transformation, time is of prime concern for technology, organization and management of work, economics, sociology/anthropology, and pedagogy and, for the analysis and development of public policy in general. BIBLIOGRAPHY Artemov, V.A. et al. 1999. The past was rich, the present is difficult, will there be a future: from vanguard to rearguard? A retrospective of time budget surveys carried out in Russia in the 20th century. Paper presented at the 1999 conference of the IATUR, Colchester, U.K. Bailey, I.1915. A study of management of farm homes, Journal of family and economic issues 17(3/4): 409-418. Bevans, G.E. 1913. How workingmen spend their time. New York: Columbia University Press. Bittman, M. and Folbre, N. (eds.) 2004. Family time: the social organization of care. New York/London: Routledge Bryant, K.W. et al. 1992. The Dollar Value of Household Work. Cornell University. Converse, Philip E. 1968. Time Budgets, in: the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences [Ed. David L. Sills], Volume 16: 42-47. London and New York: Collier-Macmillan etc. Engels, F. 1845. The Conditions of the Working Class in England. In: Marx /Engels, Collected Works, Volume 4: 295-596 [see therein, the references to the WORKING DAY on: 435-36,461-66, 481-82, 491-92, 499-500 and, 592-93]. Hamermesh, D. and Pfann, G. 2004. How People use their time: economic approaches. Amsterdam: Elsevier. INSTRAW. 1995. Measurement and Valuation of Unpaid Contribution. Santo Domingo: INSTRAW. Juster, F.T. and Stafford, F.P. 1985. Time goods and well being. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research. Merz, J. and Ehling, M. 1999, Time use: research, data, policy. Baden-Baden: Namos Verlag. Petrosian, G.S. 1965. Vnerabochee Vremia trudyaschikhsya v SSSR. Moskva: Ekonomika. 2

Prudensky, G.A. 1964, Vremia i trud. Moskva: Mysl. Robinson, J.P. 1977. How Americans use Time. New York: Praeger. Sorokin, P.A. and Berger, C.Q. 1939. Time Budgets of Human Behavior. Cambridge : Harvard University Press. Strumilin, S.G. (1923-1925) 1964. K izucheniyu byta trudyaschikhsya v SSSR, Izbrannye Proizvedeniya, T.3: 165 249. Moskva: Nauka.The first large-scale study of exhaustive 24-hour time budgets of the workers of Moscow was carried ou by S.G.Strumilin in 1924. Szalai, A. [Ed.] 1972. The Use of Time. The Hague: Mouton. Zuzanek, J. 1980. Work and Leisure in the Soviet Union: A Time-Budget Analysis. New York: Praeger. ELECTRONIC TEXTS AND DATA FILES May be accessed from the major time use research initiatives like: The Research Network on Time Use (RNTU) International Association for Time Use Research <http://www.iatur.org> United Nations Statistical Office EUROSTAT Time Use Project INSTRAW Time Use and Unpaid Work Project UNDP Genderized Human Development Index U S Bureau of Labor: American Time Use Study Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, U.K. Time Use Research Programme, St. Marys University, Halifax, Canada Research Institute on Professions, University of Lueneburg, Germany Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering, Siberian Branch, Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences Central Statistical Organization, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India. GATEWAY: <http://www.timeuse.org/> EZINE electronic International Journal of Time Use Research (eIJTUR): <http://www.eijtur.org/> Pradip Baksi 10 February 2012 Revised on 16 May 2012