1. Harmonised European Time Use Studies (HETUS) Setting the Trend for Cross-National European Time Use Research a poster presentation by Dr. Kimberly Fisher and Professor Jonathan I. Gershuny Institute for Social and Economic Research Work Time and Leisure Time: Dynamics and Convergence in Changing Contexts IATUR meeting 15-18 October 2002, Lisbon Europe has a long history of comparative time use research that began with the Hungarian scholar Alexander Szalai's 12 country study in 1965, and later produced the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS), which post-harmonised data collected from the 1960s through the present decade from 25 countries. The full potential to use harmonised time diary data to inform European comparative research and policy analysis has yet to be tapped. To promote the wider use of time use data in policy analysis, a consortium of statistical agencies and academics joined with EUROSTAT to develop Harmonised European Time Use Studies HETUS HETUS developed protocols for time use data collection which have now been piloted and implemented across Europe -Two 24 hour diaries (one week day, one weekend day) -Weekly schedule covering all episodes of paid work over the full week - Own words recording of activities in 10 minute time slots -Capture main activity, secondary acts, location, mode of travel, and who else is present -All household members (except very young children) keep diaries -Collect data for a whole year from a random national sample The data collection marks the end of the first of many steps. When the HETUS guidelines were developed, some countries had already begun developing time use studies. Other countries had a need to produce data comparable to earlier national studies. Other countries did not have funds to implement two diaries or to collect data for a whole year. Thus, many countries did not fully adhere to the HETUS guidelines. Now a post-collection harmonisation process begins. Other issues for harmonisation arise at this phase and are under discussion – including - - how to address differences in sample sizes, periods of data collection, and diary formats - how to measure and present diary quality issues - whether / how to impute some missing time information - how to present secondary activity data in a meaningful and easily used manner - ensuring anonymity of diarists HETUS data will be widely available in 3 forms. By Spring 2003, the EUROSTAT time use web site will display basic tables covering average time (in hours and minutes) in 12 grouped activities. Other countries which did not produce HETUS studies will also contribute data to these tables. There will be 5 sets of basic tables a summary table (shown in graphic to the right) all men and all women (grouped by 11 categories of family, age, household status) single parent, 1+ children aged <18 in couple, 1+ children aged <7 in couple, 1+ children aged <18, no child aged <7 aged <25, no dependent child, lives with parents aged 25-44, no dependent child, lives with parents in couple, no dependent child, aged up to 44 aged up to 44, no dependent child, other household in couple, no dependent child, aged 45-64 aged 45-64, no dependent child, other household in couple, no dependent child, aged 65+ aged 65+, no dependent child, other household all employed men, and employed women (grouped by similar categories, with the aged 65+ categories combined and parents in couples split by working full-time or part-time) Anonymised data files with diaries as row cases will be available in two ways. Users will be able to run basic output from an interactive version of the data made available on the EUROSTAT web site. Researchers also will be able to order data from EUROSTAT at an affordable price. The interactive web-based data and data file will likely become available in 2004. The data will include variables about the diarists, diarists' households, study methodology, diary design, diary quality, linking variables, weights and 4 sets of sequenced information (main activity, secondary activity, location/mode of travel, who else is present) covering 144 10-minute time slots and aggregated information, covering main activity in 10 categories, main activity in 49 categories, 9 location/mode of travel categories, 63 combined main and second activity categories, 5 categories of time with others (each set of which totals 1440 minutes) The next phase, doing the research with the data, is up to you …