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Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop (2000)

Chapter: Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
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APPENDIX
D

Draft Questionnaire for Proposed BLS Survey

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×

APPENDIX D Draft Questionnaire for Proposed BLS Survey

Survey Script

 

Explanatory Notes

Element 1: Updating CPS Data

Because time use can vary in important ways depending on the respondent’s labor force status and the composition of the respondent’s household, it is important to have up-to-date information on household characteristics. The first portion of the survey will include an update of selected CPS questions, using a “dependent interviewing” approach.

Element 2: Other Background

Additional background data that would improve time use analyses, such as data on home ownership, could be collected either as a standard part of the survey or as a periodic addition.

Element 3: Time-Use Component

 

 

Introduction

“This study is sponsored by the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. I’d like to ask you some questions about how you spent your time yesterday.

This will be the typical BLS telephone survey introduction. This version was used in the pilot test during the summer of 1997.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×

APPENDIX D Draft Questionnaire for Proposed BLS Survey

Survey Script

 

Explanatory Notes

Your participation is completely voluntary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will use the information that you provide for statistical purposes only and will hold the information in confidence to the full extent permitted by law. This interview usually takes about 25 minutes.

 

 

The best way to collect accurate information on the way people use their time is to complete a diary listing of all their activities over a 24-hour period. We start our diary at midnight (reporting day).”

 

 

Example for respondent

Let me give you an example: At midnight I was asleep until 7:00 a.m. (reporting day) morning. I took a shower and got dressed between 7:00 and 8:30. I made breakfast for my family between 8:30 and 9:00. We all ate breakfast together until 9:30. I cleaned up the dishes after breakfast until 9:45. After that I read the newspaper and I

Since the time-use survey is a semi-structured interview, dependent upon the respondent verbatim accounts of their day, it is necessary for the interviewer to provide the respondent with a brief example of how to proceed. This version was used during our pilot test. The key elements are:

a. clarification of the correct reporting day (shown

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×

watched television until 10:30. Then I drove with my daughter to the mall from 10:30 to 10:50. We were shopping for clothes until 1:00.

 

my linking it with the wake-up time of the reporting day).

 

 

b. indications of how to proceed sequentially (shown by reporting several tasks in an orderly temporal progression), and

 

 

c. training in the level of detail that is required from the respondent (shown by omitting specific details about the grooming process and by including activities such as travel, as well as the location and key persons included in the activity.

Time-use reports

Now I would like to find out how you spent your time from midnight (reporting day) until midnight last night. If we get to times you spent working at a job, just tell what time you started working and what time you stopped.

Following the conventions used by other time-use surveys, we are not asking for the same level of detail for work times as for non-work times. Since the vast majority of work times are simply spent in a series of “work” activities, researchers have generally chosen to save interview time by giving the general “work” classification to that entire time period. Since non-work time is more multifaceted, it is necessary for respondents to itemize

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×

APPENDIX D Draft Questionnaire for Proposed BLS Survey

Survey Script

 

Explanatory Notes

 

 

each activity in more detail in order to correctly classify them. We propose, however, going beyond the traditional approach by asking respondents if they stopped working at any time in order to do something that was unrelated to their work. This should enable us to collect personal, social or non-marked work activities that have been omitted and, consequently, underestimated in the past.

Initial activity

At midnight (reporting day) morning, what were you doing?

Interviewer will type the verbatim response here. This is coded for analysis as an “initial” or “primary” activity.

Start time

What time did this start?

Interviewer will enter the starting time.

Stop time

What time did this end?

Interviewer will enter the ending time.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×

Location

Where were you?/were you still … (accept only one answer)

Following the Canadian procedure, interviewers would be asked to classify the response into categories similar to these:

 

 

PLACE

 

 

a. respondent’s home

b. work place

c. someone else’s home

d. other place (type-in verbatim location)

OR IN TRANSIT

e. car (driver)

f. car (passenger)

g. walking

h. bus or subway (include street cars, commuter trains or other public transit)

i. bicycle

j. other such as airplane, train, motorcycle (type-in verbatim location)

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×
Page 108
Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×
Page 109
Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×
Page 110
Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×
Page 111
Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×
Page 112
Suggested Citation:"Appendix D Draft Questionnaire for Prososed BLS Survey." National Research Council. 2000. Time-Use Measurement and Research: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9866.
×
Page 113
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One of the most substantial policy changes in the past decade was the elimination of the main social welfare program for poor families, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, ending the entitlement to cash benefits and replacing it with a policy emphasizing work. A question relevant for understanding the consequences of this policy change is how the time allocation among work and family care activities of poor families has changed.

President Clinton's proposed budget for fiscal 2001 includes funds for the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to develop a survey to measure how Americans spend their time (U.S. Department of Labor, 2000). BLS has already explored the feasibility of such a survey. In 1997, a pilot study that collected time-use data for a sample of Americans was conducted, and the results of that study were presented at a 1997 conference sponsored by BLS and the MacArthur Network on the Family and the Economy. Using knowledge gained from the pilot study and the conference, BLS published a report on the feasibility of a national time-use survey and developed a proposal to conduct the survey.

Time-Use Measurement and Research is a summary of a workshop convened to consider data and methodological issues in measuring time use. This report discusses why time-use data are needed, highlighting many of policy and behavioral applications of time-use data. It also summarizes conceptual issues covered during the workshop, discusses a framework for how individuals and households allocate their time, and comments on some conceptual issues in measuring time use.

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