1Background to the methods used in the Time Budget Survey (TBO)

The SCP’s Time Budget Survey (TBO) uses time budget study methodology. This entails a specific method of measuring time use. Time budget research is research in which respondents are asked to record the precise moments and duration of all events of a predefined type within a specific period of time (cf. Pronovost 1989: 76). Generally the time use during an entire day, part of a day or number of days is measured in its totality, but this is not essential: a time budget study could equally well measure only the time spent working or reading, for example; this could be referred to as a partial or semi-time budget study. The key factor in all time budget research is that a note is made of when each individual activity begins and ends. In contrast to ‘normal ’ surveys, respondents are not asked to look back in general at a collection of activities (how often have you been swimming in the last year, how many hours per week do you work, etc.), but rather to note down the precise times and dates of every activity on a diary-like form. The strength of time budget research lies in the fact that the researchers attempt to monitor time use from as close at hand as possible, and then to draw a comprehensive picture from those observations. Keeping a diary minimises the need for respondents need to rely on their- selective- memories. The risk of deliberate or accidental overestimation or underestimation of activities is thus also kept to a minimum. Because of the ‘closed’ recording system used, in which a period of 24 hours really does consist of no more than 96 fifteen-minute periods, the information contained in the diaries relates fairly directly to the actual time use during the respondents’s daily life. This makes time budget research the most reliable indicator of time use, especially for informal, fairly mundane and regularly recurring activities (e.g. household tasks, informal social contacts