Time Use survey

A major survey that will provide concrete evidence of how New Zealanders spend their time, and how much time they spend doing unpaid work, will be field tested in March.

The Department of Statistics’ Time Use survey is an important way of gathering hard-to-get information about how people live their daily lives, and what they are really doing with their time. This information is vital for knowing how much time people spend on unpaid and voluntary work, caring for others, socialising and relaxing, and how they balance work with other parts of their lives.   Traditional economic statistics do not measure unpaid work, because it goes on outside the market – and therefore has been seen as having no economic value. This was challenged by Marilyn Waring, a former MP, now an international political economist and Professor at AUT, in her book Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth. Professor Waring argued that women’s contribution to the economy and society was undervalued because it was not adequately counted or recognised.

To counter this, Statistics NZ conducted the first Time Use survey in 1988/89, and this year’s survey will update that information. The Agency plans to conduct a Time Use survey every eight years from now on.

In the field test, beginning in March, surveyors will go out to 300 randomly selected households in Christchurch, Wellington and Tauranga. According to the Project Managers from Statistics New Zealand, Bridget Murphy and Kathy Gannon, people will be asked a range of questions about how they have spent their time over the previous 4 weeks, such as if they did any unpaid work. They will then be asked to fill in a diary for 2 days, accounting for every 5 minutes of their time. Although this is quite a commitment, people undertake it willingly, says Ms Murphy.

“People are usually honest and accurate – they find it interesting to reflect on their own lives and time spent. After they have finished, the interviewer goes back and asks them questions about it, which is a good way of checking the information.”
So much of women’s work (in the house, caring for children or others, and as community workers) is unpaid, the survey is a valuable way of measuring their contribution, she says.   Statistics NZ will also use the information gleaned to get a more accurate picture of the not-for-profit sector, and try to put a monetary value on that. The information is important in all sorts of ways, the statisticians say. From a social viewpoint, it shows how people’s choices are affected by their circumstances and responsibilities. From an economic viewpoint, it gives more accurate information on people’s productive activities. And in health, it can help show where people spend their time, and how that affects health services.

Once the field test results have been collected and analysed, Statistics NZ will do the survey on a large scale, interviewing 8,500 people all over New Zealand in November this year.
“It’s a major social survey”, says Ms Murphy. “We’ll employ 75 trained interviewers.”

While it is too early to know what new information might turn up, it will certainly provide a window into the lives of different population groups, the size and contribution of the household and voluntary sectors, the relationship between paid and unpaid work, and how stretched people’s time is. There is keen interest in the Time Use survey from many agencies because it will provide evidence on which policy can be based.

“We know that many people, especially women, do a huge amount of work that is not recognised or rewarded by society, and this influences how much time they have to spend on paid work, and how well they do there”, says EEO Commissioner Judy McGregor. “But we need hard evidence in order to develop fairer laws and policies, and the Time Use survey will be a big help in gathering that.”