Time Use Survey

(July, 1998 - June, 1999)

Brief Details and Important Findings of the Survey

Time Use Survey was conducted in 18,591 households spread over 6 selected States namely, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya. Various activities involved in the survey were handled and coordinated by the Social Statistics Division of the Central Statistical Organisation. The main objectives of the survey were to collect data for properly quantifying the economic contribution of the women in the national economy and to study the gender discrimination in the household activities. The field work of the survey was done during July, 1998 to June, 1999 with the help of the staff of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics of the participating States. The field work was spread over one year to take care of seasonal variation in the activity patron of the individual. This Survey with its size and coverage is first of its kind, not only in India but among all the developing countries.

The sampling design adopted in the survey was three stage stratified design. The first, second and third stages were the district, villages/urban blocks and households. Proper stratification of the districts in the selected states were done using the population density and proportion of tribal population to ensure capturing of the variability in the population. In the villages/urban blocks also sub-stratification was adopted to ensure representation of all types of households in the Survey.

After careful consideration interviewing method rather than diary or observation method was adopted for collection of data . A reference period of one week was adopted for collecting the data. With a view to capture the variation in the activity pattern, data were collected for three types of days namely, normal, weekly variant and abnormal. Further, data for each type of these days were collected with a recall lapse of only one-day.

As no activity classification useful to India was available, a new activity classification was developed for use in the survey.

Out of 18,628 household planned to be covered, the survey could be conducted in 18,591 households. Therefore, the non-response rate was almost negligible. The average household size varied from 4.56 in Gujarat to 3.57 in Tamil Nadu. The single member households were about 6%. The percentage of land less rural households was as high as 64% in Tamil Nadu and as low as 13% in Meghalaya. The percentage of rural households owing 8 acres or more land was highest (13.40%) in Gujarat and lowest (1.73%) in Orissa.

About 90% of the total households were Hindus. The Muslim households were 4% in rural area and 10% in urban areas. In Meghalaya, 64% of the households in rural and 60% in urban areas were Christian. About 26% households in rural areas and 71% in urban areas were living in pucca houses.

Overall about 10% households in rural areas and 9% in urban areas were headed by women. The proportion of such household was highest in Meghalaya followed by Tamil Nadu. Though Meghalaya is a matriarchal society, maximum of only about 29% households in urban areas were female headed. There was not much difference in the proportion of female headed households among Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other social groups taking all the six states together. About 29% of the female headed households were single member households. The survey results show that about 23% households in rural areas and 21% in urban areas were in the highest monthly per capita expenditure class (mpce) of more than Rs.560/- in rural and Rs.1055/- in urban areas. About 18% households in both rural and urban areas were having mpce of less than Rs.300/- and Rs.490/- respectively.

Out of total population surveyed, about 70% of the respondents were residing in rural areas. There were marginally higher males (51.7%) compared to females (48.3%). About 18% of the respondents were of age less than 6 years. About 34% population in rural and 29% in urban were in the age group 0-14 years. Percentage of population aged 60 years and above was 6.6% in rural areas and 5.7% in urban areas. In some of the age groups, sex ratio (females/males per 1,000) was found to be adverse to females, particularly in some states. For all the six states combined, the survey figure for rural areas compares quite well with NSSO and NFHS. The urban figure from the survey compares quite well with that from NFHS.

About 49% of the surveyed population were found to be currently married. The proportion of widowed population was about 5%. In all the six states taken together 67% of the persons were found to be literate; the percentage being 56% for females and 77% for males. Their literacy rates were found to be highest in Tamil Nadu followed by Meghalaya. About 29% of the household in the states covered do not have any literate member aged 7 years and above. Fortunately, this percentage was only 9% in urban areas. Further, still about 57% of the households in rural areas and 26% in urban areas do not have any such literate female members. However, the percentage of such households has reduced in rural and urban areas from 67.8% in 1993-94 to 57.14% in 1998-99 and 39.7% in 1993-94 to 26.26% in 1998-99 respectively.

The survey results show that about 47.5% of the respondents were employed whereas 51.7% were out of labour force. The percentage of unemployed was found to be less than 1%. There was wide variation in the percentage of persons employed among states. The percentage of persons employed was higher in rural areas as compared to urban areas in all the states whereas unemployed were more in urban areas.

In this survey the prevalence of child labour was found to be 4.5% as compared to 6.1% in NSSO. Out of total persons surveyed about 1.16% were found to be having some form of disability. The incidence of disability was found to be highest (2.09%) in Orissa followed by Haryana (1.61%) and Gujarat (1.11%) . Out of the total disabled persons, about 58% were males and remaining 42% females.

Contrary to the general perception, about 87% of the women reported that they participated in the household decision making. There was almost no rural urban difference. Similarly, very little difference was observed among the social groups as far as female participation in household decision making was concerned. Even about 88% of illiterate women reported that they were participating in the decision making.

The respondents did not report many incidences of weekly variant and abnormal days. Out of 7 days, normal weekly variant and abnormal days were reported to be 6.51, 0.44 and 0.05. Therefore, normal days constituted about 93% of all the days covered in the survey. Normal days were reported to be marginally higher for females as compared to males. The pattern was more or less same in all the states except Meghalaya where normal days were found to be only 6. Not much variation was observed in the days pattern over different sub-rounds and states. Variation observed was only marginal. Of course, number of normal days were lowest (6.37) in first sub-round (July-September, 1998) and highest in fourth sub-round (April-June, 1999). Therefore, in the main survey we may use only one day i.e normal day for collecting the data without loosing much information. On the other hand, use of normal day can reduce the burden of investigator substantially.

Out of 168 hours, on the average, male spent about 42 hours in SNA activities as compared to only about 19 hours by females. However, situation completely changes when we consider extended SNA activities. In these activities, male spent only about 3.6 hours as compared to 34.6 hours by females. In non -SNA activities, which pertains to learning, leisure and personal care, male spent about 8 hours more as compared to females. On the average, 71% of the time is spent in non -SNA activities. The SNA and extended SNA contribute for 18% and 11% respectively.

Time use pattern for males were not found to be significantly different in rural and urban areas. However, the female"s participation in SNA activities (5%) in urban areas was much lower as compared to 13% in rural areas. Significant variation have been also observed in time use pattern over the states. Maximum time spent in SNA activities for rural males was in Meghalaya (48.28 hours) followed by Gujarat (44.83 hours) and Madhya Pradesh (43.55 hours). Minimum was observed in Orissa (39.54 hours). Trend was almost similar for females in rural areas also. For urban areas highest time for male was found in Tamil Nadu (43.28 hours) followed by Orissa (42.13 hours) and Gujarat (41.81 hours). As far as the urban females were concerned, highest time was found to be in Meghalaya (14.42 hours) followed by Haryana (11.21 hours) and Tamil Nadu (11.02 hours).

As regards extended activities, Gujarat scored the highest time (37.55 hours) for rural females followed by Madhya Pradesh (35.47 hours) and Orissa (35.28 hours). There was not much variation observed in the time spent in extended SNA activities by rural and urban females. The maximum difference was observed to be about 4 hours.

If we take SNA and extended SNA activities together, the average time spent by rural males is only 46.05 hours as compared to 56.48 hours by rural females. For urban males, this figure comes out to be 44.50 hours as compared to 45.60 hours by urban females. Therefore, women were found to be working for longer hours than males. If we work out the average of women"s work to the total works of male and females, it works out to be 55% which compares quite well with the figure of 53% quoted in the UNDP Human Development Report for 1995. Therefore, if extended SNA activities are included in the economic activities, the contribution of women will be higher as compared to men.

In India, no payment is made for a number of economic activities. Such activities are performed either by family labour or through exchange labour. For the six states combined, payment was not made for about 38% of the time spent in SNA activities. The amount of unpaid activities was more (51%) for female as compared to only 33% for male. The predominance of females in unpaid activities was visible in all the states. The percentage of time spent by females in unpaid activities was highest in Haryana (86%) followed by Meghalaya (76%) and Orissa (69%). The percentage was lowest for Tamil Nadu (32%).

Whatever characteristics of respondents we take, it was generally found that females spent about double the time as compared to males in activities relating to taking care of children, sick and elderly people. The time spent by currently married and widowed females were found to be higher than those for never married and divorced. No significant impact of educational level was found in such activities. Marginal differences were observed over the states.

Personal care and self maintenance is necessary for the healthy life and individual’s well being . In this survey not much significant difference was observed in the time spent on personal care by male and females. As regards the age, time spent by individuals aged 60 years and above was about 124 hours as compared to 98 hours in the age group 6-14 and about 95 hours in the age group 15-59. Currently married men spent about six more hours in such activities as compared to currently married women. As regards the educational level, the illiterate women spent about 103 hours as compared to only 94 hours by women with graduate and above qualification.

Time Use Survey provides for the first time data on some of the important activities which generally fall in the domain of women’s life. Women reported that they spent about 2.1 hours per day on cooking food, about 1.1 hour on cleaning the household and utensils. Participation of men in these activities was just nominal. Taking care of children was also mainly the women’s responsibility as they spent about 3.16 hours per week on these activities as compared to only 0.32 hours by males. Women reported less than one hour of time spent on activities relating to shopping, pet care, teaching own children, taking care of guests, etc. However, if this time is calculated during one year period, this time will become quite significant. There was not much difference in the time spent on most of the activities among states.

For proper individual development, men and women should get equal time for reading, personal hygiene, leisure such as reading newspaper, watching TV and listening to music, sleep etc. In Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, women slept 2 hours less than men in a week. However, in Meghalaya and Tamil Nadu there was almost no difference in sleeping hours of men and women. In case of personal hygiene also men spent 1 hour more than women. There was substantial difference on time spent for personal hygiene by men and women in Gujarat. Men in all the 6 states spent much more time than women in reading newspaper, listening to music, smoking and drinking intoxicants and physical exercise. Almost about 1 hour was spent by men and women per day in gossiping and talking. Data from this survey do not support the general belief women spent more time than men in gossiping and talking. It is heartening to note that both men and women spent about ¾ of an hour per week on meditation. Time spent by women on meditation was marginally higher in all the 6 states except Haryana. Men and women spent only about 1 hour and ¾ hour respectively in reading newspaper and other materials.

In Time Use Survey, time spent on travel relating to various activities were collected. Of course, it will not be possible through this survey to find out the time spent by one individual on travel in one day or one week. As expected travel time was highest (2.19 hours) per week in services in urban areas. In crop farming, kitchen gardening, etc. male and females in rural areas is spent about 3 and one and half hours per week respectively. Except the activities relating to the collection of fruits and processing and storage in rural areas, men spent more time on travel in all other activities in rural and urban areas. For learning and personal care respondent spent about ¾ hour and half hour per week respectively. Travel time for learning was marginally higher in urban areas as compared to rural areas.

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For further details regarding this survey, please contact
The Additional Director General
Central Statistics Office
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
Government of India, Room No. 13,
West Block-8, Wing-6 (Ground Floor), Sector-I,
R.K. Puram, New Delhi-110066, India
Telephone: (91-11) 2610-8529, FAX: (91-11) 2610 8404
E-mail : adg-ssd-mospi@nic.in
Web site: http://www.mospi.gov.in

Or

The Deputy Director General
Central Statistics Office
Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
Government of India, Room No. 15,
West Block-8, Wing-6 (Ground Floor), Sector-I,
R.K. Puram, New Delhi-110066, India
Telephone: (91-11) 2617-1146, FAX: (91-11) 2610 8404
E-mail : ij.singh@nic.in
Web site: http://www.mospi.gov.in
Similarly any comments or suggestions on the material presented in the web-site may be also communicated to them.