EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Update on the ongoing revision of the International Classification of Activities for Time Use Statistics- ICATUS Expert Group Meeting on International Classifications Rachid Bouhia

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Introduction UNSD SHSS is the custodian of ICATUS Under revision since Spring 2012 Objectives of this presentation: To report on the status of work To get feedback

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Outlines Based on the Best Practice Guidelines (Hancock, 2013) The status of ICATUS vis-a-vis the 10 identified principles: –Custodians, –Conceptual Basis, –Classification Structure, –Classification Type, –Mutual Exclusivity, –Exhaustiveness, –Statistical Balance, –Statistical Feasibility, –Statistical Units –Time-Series Comparability

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Familiarity with Time Use Surveys In general 3 components: Household questionnaire Individual questionnaire: –Characteristics –Contextual information related to Time Use –Stylized questions on unrecurrent activities Diary –Verbatim description of activities coded afterward into a classification –Best practice to measure time

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Custodian : UNSD/SHSS Mandate: Statistical Commission 1995 Development and maintenance: 1997: 1 st EGM “Draft Classification” 2000: 2 nd EGM “Trial version”, issued in UN Guidelines for TUS : Support of the implementation in countries + compilation of feedback 2012: 3 rd EGM for revision and finalisation 2013: Presentation at different fora: Statistical Commission, IAEG-GS, International workshops, IATUR Conference…

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Conceptual basis The main conceptual framework is the System of National Accounts (SNA) − Activities falling inside the SNA production boundary, or “SNA work” activities − Activities falling beyond SNA but inside the General production boundary, or “non-SNA work” activities − Activities not considered productive, or “personal activities” Potential impact of the newly proposed ILO framework for Work Statistics : agreement to hold the revision until the 19 th ICLS in October 2013

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Classification structure Hierarchic in line with the SNA framework Major change in ICATUS 2012: reduction of the number of levels from 5 to 3 –“Major divisions”, “Divisions” and “Groups”

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Classification Type ICATUS is an “international classification” “ICATUS is intended to be a standard classification of all activities that the general population may spend time on during the 24 hours of a day. Its main purpose is to provide a set of activity categories that can be utilized in producing meaningful statistics on Time Use” (United Nations, 2005) “Umbrella classification”: consistent with other major regional classification such as HETUS or CAUTAL In 2012 revision, particular attention to leave room for national adjustments

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Mutual Exclusivity Activities are mutually exclusive Because of the SNA framework, use of contextual information to differentiate the same type of activity (example “cooking”) 2 required actions from 2012 EGM: 1)Need to further explore and clarify through extensive metadata how to classify “borderline” activities 2)All the contextual information needed should be identified and clearly reported to the potential users in order to avoid misinterpretations

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Exhaustiveness 2012 EGM: took into account last developments in measuring time based on the study of other regional and national classifications 1)Add/modify certain categories (ICT…) 2)Suppress some unused/meaningless categories 3)Categories for “Others” at the 1 st and 2 nd levels

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Statistical Balance Constraints of the SNA framework Currently: 8 major divisions 3 have 6 divisions, 2 have 5 divisions, 1 has 9, 1 has 8 and 1 has 7

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Statistical feasibility Trial version of ICATUS has been applied by at least 23 countries since 2000 No report of particular issue/challenge on feasibility

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Statistical units Time It was applied in survey diaries of 10, 15 or 30 min time intervals To what extent ICATUS can be applied to light surveys? 1 st level?

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Time – series comparability Important criterion for 2012 EGM : to remain consistent with previous versions of ICATUS Argument in favor of keeping the SNA framework in spite of its complexity for non familiar users As previously mentioned, ICATUS is already used by NSO’s to produce statistics on Time Use

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org References For more details, please refer to UNSD’s website: m/EGM%20June%202012/list_of_docs.htm UN “Guide to Producing Statistics on time Use” UNSD can also provide a compilation of the comments by the group of experts under request.

EGM on International Statistical Classifications, New York, May 2013Social and Housing Statistics Section unstats.un.org Many thanks for your attention and your questions