巴德学院利维经济研究所-改进计量工作时间使用数据收集的最新举措：一些问题

Recent Initiatives in Improving the Collection of Time-use Data forMeasuring Work: Some Issues by Indira HirwayCentrefor Development Alternatives, India September2025 The Levy Economics Institute Working Paper Collection presents research in progress by Levy Institute scholars andconference participants. The purpose of the series is to disseminate ideas to and elicit comments from academics andprofessionals. Levy EconomicsInstitute of Bard College,founded in 1986, is a nonprofit,nonpartisan,independently funded research organization devoted to public service. Through scholarship andeconomic research, it generates viable, effective public policy responsesto important economicproblems that profoundly affect the quality of life in the United States and abroad. Levy Economics InstituteP.O. Box 5000Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504-5000http://www.levyinstitute.orgCopyright © Levy Economics Institute 2025 All rights reservedISSN 1547-366X ABSTRACT Time-usedata are expected to help in understanding and addressing critical socioeconomicconcerns including gender inequalities in a country. The data also help in integrating gender intoeconomic analysis and economic policy making to promote inclusive development. Against thisrising demand fortime-usedata, the supply of qualitytime-usedata is not coming forth,particularly inlow-and middle-incomecountries. The problems faced by developing countriesare basically of two types: thoserelated tosurvey designand its different components andthosepertaining tothecollection oftime-usedata. The first type of problem can be resolved largely bycompiling a comprehensive guidebook by UNSD—whichis already done. The second type ofproblem requiresradical changes intime-usedata collection methods.This paper presents therecommendations made by UN Women, UNSD, the World Bank,ILO, and other experts, andmakes an assessment of these recommendations. The paper argues thatalight time diary,recommended by these organizations does notparticularlyhelp in accessing qualitytime-usedata. The paper recommends that thoughatime-usesurvey is a complex survey, particularly in acountry where literacy is low, the survey is feasible if adequate care is taken by the NationalStatistical Office (NSO). JEL CODES:AJH KEYWORDS: Time poverty, LIMTIP, time deficits, unpaid family labor INTRODUCTION As is well-known,time-usesurveys(TUS)provide comprehensive informationon howindividuals spend their time—on a daily or weekly basis—on different activities likeeconomicactivitiesthat fall within the production boundary, activities that fallwithin the generalproduction boundary but outside the production boundary—like unpaid household services, careand voluntary services—and personal activities that fall outside the general production boundary,and are non-delegable, like eating, sleeping, watching thetelevision,etc.TUS is the only surveytechnique available to us today for collecting comprehensive data on all three types of humanactivities. In the initial stages (i.e.,theearly decades of the twentieth century)time-use datawerecollectedforunderstanding the life stylesof people, andassessing theburden of work on agricultural andindustrial workers.In the 1960s and 1970s,the data were used by broadcasting companies todesign their programming scheduleson the basis offree time(mainly by Japan and SouthKorea), and fortransportationplanning,etc. Since the mid-1970s the data are alsousedinestimating the contribution of women’s unpaid work to national well-being,and for designingpolicies for gender equality social issues such as problems of theelderly, caringforpatients withHIV/AIDS, work-life balance,and others, as well as forunderstanding environmental pollutionproblems.1Since the 1990s,the data are alsoseen asuseful for measuring and understandinginformal and subsistence work, for planning for employment and for understanding the roots ofchildlaborand issues concerning health, nutrition,2and education of the poor as well as timepoverty and other socioeconomic concerns of the countries.In addition,time-usedata areviewedas a tool to understandtheimpact of macroeconomic policies onthepaid and unpaid work ofwomen and men,andto designmacroeconomic policies and modelling. Levy Economics Institute’s contribution is particularly worth mentioning here.The Institute hasdeveloped an innovativeconceptcalledthe Levy Institute Measure of Time and Income Poverty(LIMTIP).This measure presents not onlyatwo-dimensional income and time poverty, but asZacharias (2017)has shown, it accounts for intra-household disparitiesbetween women andmen.Levy scholars have developedaLIMTIP for several countries, such asTurkey (Zacharias etal. 2014),Ghana and Tanzania (Zacharias et al. 2018),and others. Ilkkaracan et al.(2021)havecompletedanother interestingstudyentitled“TheImpact of Investing in Social Care onEmployment Generation, Time-and Income-Poverty and Gender Gaps: A Macro-Micro PolicySimulation for Turkey.”The paper observes that employment creati