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Location: Home  »  Statistics  » Time Use Survey

Time Use Survey

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has conducted three national Time Use Surveys, in 1992, 1997 and 2006. Data from the 2006 survey is expected to be publicly available in late 2007. These surveys collect data about the activities of randomly selected persons aged 15 and over in Australia. Respondents keep a diary for 48 hours and fill in their activities down to 5 minute intervals. The diary data includes the person's primary and secondary activities, who the activities were done for, who was present while the activities occurred, and where the activities occurred.

Time use surveys are the best source of information about unpaid work: its quantity, its nature, its distribution by gender and by social and economic factors. They are also the only reliable basis for estimating the monetary value of unpaid work. Time use data are also invaluable for broader social research into the relationships between paid work, unpaid work and leisure and provide a rich source of largely untapped potential for the exploration of a broad range of issues in the social sciences.

OfW and Time Use Surveys

The Office for Women's Time Use Fellowship programme since 2003 has provided four year-long opportunities for early post-doctoral researchers to undertake full-time research utilising Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey data.
These innovative Fellowships have been designed to:

• encourage and support original research using time use data from a gender perspective;
• disseminate time use research results; and
• promote informed policy development and analysis in relation to women and time use.

The Fellowships will result in the accumulation of a substantial body of research using time use data which adds to existing knowledge in this area. OfW hopes that Fellows will continue to undertake time use related research projects in their future careers and that other researchers may be stimulated to make greater use of the rich data resources contained in time use survey data. The research projects undertaken by the Fellows will also contribute to policy analysis and development within government.

Time Use and Gender Seminar

The Office for Women and the Social Policy Research Centre hosted a Gender and Time Use seminar on 14 June 2006, which showcased findings from time use research and assisted in adding to the debate and discussion about time use data and the gendered implications of findings from this data.

This seminar examined current Australian and  international research on time use. The seminar also showcased the excellent work produced by the OfW Time Use Research Fellows.

Speakers at this seminar were Suzanne Bianchi, previous OfW Time Use fellows (Lyn Craig, Leonie Bloomfield, and Trish Hill), Julie Smith, Mark Ellwood, Janeen Baxter and Duncan Ironmonger.

Papers from this seminar are now available on the Social Policy Research Centre website.