1. HETUS Pilot Group 6 Revised and new dimensions in time diaries
Kimberly Fisher, Centre for Time Use Research – co-ordinator
Tania Cappadozzi, Laura Castell, Jonathan Gershuny, Aslıhan Kabadayı, Hannu Paäkkönen, Dragana Djokovic Papic, Chris Payne, and external consultant Kai Ludwigs
3 January 2016

2. Key considerations for surveys
Relevant to current policy priorities
Take advantage of opportunities offered by new data collection technologies
Explore capacity to add to information collected by the HETUS
Comparability with previous surveys
Relevant to respondents
Easy to complete, minimise respondent burden
Easy to use, minimise researcher burden

3. Topics covered by Group 6
Revising who else was present
Revising reporting of secondary activities
Improve subjective well-being questions
Adding an enjoyment / happiness field
Collecting use of internet, smart devices
Measuring physical activity
Measuring energy use and environmental impact
Measuring weather, environmental risks

4. Who else was present - now
Specified tick-boxes
Alone
With household children too young to complete the diary
Other household members
Other known people

5. Who present – what is missing
Only collect alone / not alone for single person households; unrelated adult households
Not always possible to link spouses
Do not know age / gender of people present
Know almost nothing about time with people who live in other households

6. Who present – what is missing
Hard to tell time between parents and non- resident children (HETUS activity codes for care only, only limited episodes recorded)
Hard to identify time use of people providing care to people from other households
Hard for users to map household diaries
Respondents write who present details we lose

8. Swedish model Alone Write in the names of household members
People from other households

9. Can we be alone with others? Does who we are with on-line matter?

10. Who present – improvements
Experiment building on the Swedish model – perhaps allow diarists to write in non-household and people present on-line
Retain capacity to recode to older HETUS codes
Allow people to record alone with others, use separate code to distinguish these cases in alone column in data

11. Reporting secondary activities
Some activities combine HETUS code domains (walk to the shop to buy food while walking the dogs)
Possible to do more than 1 main and 1 secondary activity (prepare meal, supervise children, listen to radio)
Respondents write down multiple activities – at moment choices made about what detail to lose

12. Consider allowing multiple secondary activity reports?
Prioritise what goes into 2nd, 3rd secondary activity column to maximise comparability

13. Subjective well-being
Satisfaction with life in general, health, and other subjective well being questions in the individual questionnaire have a variety of scales (0-5; 0-7; 0-10)
OECD guidelines (being updated this week), other standardisation
Follow an international standard for such questions

14. Happiness / Enjoyment Column
Episode level well-being is part of the well-being picture for individuals & societies
Need this information for policies to reduce harm
Allows assessment of unintended consequences of behaviour change
Successful in HETUS from France, Italy & UK
Meaningful to respondents
Neutral/positive impact on response rates

17. SWB Column tests Scale for ratings What question to ask exactly?
Better for all diaries to include the same question or for subsamples to ask different questions?
Which episode level SWB questions have the most policy relevance and explain the most about people’s time use?

18. Use of internet & smart devices
Observations of Klas Rydenstam, Statistics Sweden – the more familiar you are with devices, the less you report their use
Identify technologically isolated populations
Need to collect meaningful device use data
Smart devices change content of many activities
More burden to write down that a smart device is involved than to tick a box reflecting smart device use

23. Use of internet & smart devices
The UK model did not increase respondent burden, will this hold true in other countries?
A smart device column collects more episodes than diaries without this column collect – need to consider backwards comparability for cross-time analysis both in terms of time and episodes
Can/should we distinguish single from simultaneous multiple device use?

24. Additional information smart devices can collect
Physical activity
Healthy / unhealthy behaviours
More precise location
Weather / pollution / exposure data
Energy usage
Environmental impact of behaviour

25. Capacity to match in data
Date / time information and location on the diary day permit matching of some data to time use surveys – including access to services & facilities, weather / pollution / exposure readings, range of transportation options
Need possibility of restricted access to micro data to create new variables by matching data
Need to check new variables to ensure anonymity of respondents

26. Pilot Group 6 Priorities
Retain reporting of alone and with others simultaneously when this is reported
Possibly consider retaining reporting of multiple secondary activities
Retain capacity to arrange restricted access to microdata to match in administrative data, such as weather, exposure, or access to facilities, to construct new variables

27. Pilot Group 6 Priorities
Experiment with alternatives for reporting who else was present
Capture which household members present in a way that is easier for data users
Detail about people from other households
Possibly time with people on-line
Standardise subjective well-being questions in the individual questionnaires

28. Pilot Group 6 Priorities
Experiment with enjoyment / happy diary field
Which questions to ask
How to implement
How to calibrate
Impact on participation / diary burden
Experiment to collect use of smart devices – how well does UK model translate elsewhere?
Examine backwards comparability issues from adding enjoyment and smart device use fields