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Research on time use has seen several major developments in recent years. These include the adoption of exciting new technologies (e.g., smartphones, wearable Global Positioning System devices) that track behavior in real time, as well as a growing international database—the Multinational Time Use Study—that has surpassed one million days’ worth of harmonized time-diary data. These developments are transforming our understanding of the social patterning of everyday behavior. This article provides updates about this area of work, including recent findings regarding foundational sociological issues such as trends in gendered divisions of household labor and over-time, cross-national aggregate estimates of time spent on paid work and leisure. We also highlight new approaches to the study of time use. This includes an overview of advances in the collection and analysis of time-stamped behavioral data, as well as a discussion of methodological advances in the analysis of the temporal sequential structure of everyday activities.

Using time diary evidence on change in the frequency and distribution of activities from UK time diary data over the 15 years from the turn of the 21st century, we assess whether the thesis of ‘the speed-up society’ is manifested in an increase in time intensity in people’s daily lives. Comparing indictors like time fragmentation, multitasking and ICT use, to respondents’ reports of how rushed they normally feel, we find no evidence that time pressure is increasing, or that ICT use is associated with greater feelings of time pressure. Rather, we find consistent cross-sectional differentials in our measures of time intensity by gender and occupational status, supporting the idea of relative stasis in the underlying social inequalities of time. These findings are consistent with previous research based on time use data, and we pose them as a challenge to theories of societal speed-up.

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)1.IntroductionIn this paper we update previous cross-national evidence on the gender division of housework. Due to the usual gap that occurs between the collection of survey data and their public launch, most research on this topic published up to the end of the first decade of the 21st century - including some influential decade reviews (Bianchi and Milkie 2010; Lachance-Grzela and Bouchard 2010) - relied on research based on data on housework time from the years up to 2005-2006 at the latest (although Bianchi et al. 2012 updated the US time use data to 2010).Using the Multinational Time Use Study (Fisher and Gershuny 2013), we bring the cross-national evidence up to date by including data from 10 additional surveys from 9 countries for the period 2005-2011 (Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, U.K., and U.S.A.).The study of housework is interesting for three main reasons. Firstly, it is a routine, repetitive and disliked activity, which means that the relative time spouses spend on housework has long been recognized as an important indicator of marital power (Davies and Greenstein 2013). We use core housework (cleaning, cooking, and clothes care) as our measure in these analyses because these are both the most disliked domestic labour activities and the most traditionally feminine. They have, therefore, been the ones that have been most resistant to change. Since the burden of responsibility for these activities traditionally falls on women, this can have negative consequences for their work-life balance and their sense of time pressure. Secondly, the division of housework is significantly related to couples' well-being. Disagreement over housework is one of the main sources of marital conflict (Ruppaner 2010; van der Lippe, Voorpostel, and Hewitt 2014). Between 36% (Portugal) and 90% (Finland) of married/cohabiting couples across Europe report having disagreements over housework (van der Lippe, Voorpostel, and Hewitt 2014). Thirdly, housework has been an important measure in the debate over the stalling or not of the 'gender revolution' (e.g., England 2010). The inclusion of more recent surveys in our analyses allows us to bring the cross-national evidence underpinning the 'convergence versus stall' debate in the gender division of housework up to the end of the first decade of the current century.2.DataTime use diary data is generally regarded as the 'gold standard' for the measurement of time spent in routine activities such as housework (e.g., Robinson and Godbey 1997; Bianchi, Robinson and Milkie 2006). The data we use comes from Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS), an international archive of cross-national time use surveys dating from the 1960s to the current day. We use data from 19 countries between 1961 and 2011, chosen on the basis of their data series and quality. The sample is limited to adults aged 19 or older. Table 1 shows the full list of surveys included in the data, sample sizes, and average minutes spent on core housework by men and women.In the analyses that follow, housework refers to the most disliked, routine, and traditionally feminine-defined housework activities of laundry and cleaning, food preparation, and cooking. Household chores that are traditionally masculine or genderneutral, such as home maintenance, car repairs, or shopping, are excluded.3.MethodsWe first calculated average minutes spent on core housework by men and women across countries (see Table 1). We then applied multilevel models estimating the effect of gender, controlling for relevant socio-demographic factors. The baseline model is a random intercept model, where individuals are nested in surveys (country-year), showing the effect of being a woman on the time spent on core housework with no socio-demographic controls:...In a second model we add controls for demographic and socio-economic variables, namely age, educational attainment, employment and marital status, number of children under age 18 in the household, and the presence of a child under age 5 in the household. …

In this chapter I first define, and then examine the origins of research into, the gendered division of household labor and care. I outline the main theoretical approaches, finishing with the development of multi-level theoretical frameworks that connect the institutional and interactional levels of the gendered construction of labor and care. I follow the logic of these models to describe current configurations and trends. I focus on the factors identified by successive decade reviews as being the most important influences on the gendered division of household labor and care, and describe spousal resources and educational level as examples of individual-level influences. I then discuss cross-national trends in relation to institutional-level policy contexts, comparing evidence for and against the idea of a recent ‘stall’ in progress towards gender equality. I conclude by arguing that it is important to recognize the processes of progressive change that are at work, in order to continue to press for movement in the direction of greater equality. I outline the most significant barriers that need addressing, emphasizing in particular the persistency of traditional masculinities, and policy directions that fail to address the need for a better work-life balance for both women and men.

(1991). Unemployment: Family Circumstances and Childhood Correlates Among Young People in Britain. Population Studies: Vol. 45, No. sup1, pp. 115-132.

This article presents an overview of the gendered distinctions between housework and child care, illustrating those distinctions through time-use diary research. Following the logic of the gender structure perspective, I discuss findings that demonstrate differences between the gendered performance of housework and child care at the individual, institutional, and interactional levels of the gender structure. I show that distinguishing between housework and child care at these different levels of analysis aids in developing a more nuanced appreciation of the processes that underpin the gender division of domestic work and care, and I argue that these distinctions have important implications for gender theory and policy.

This article addresses the dilemma of consumption for those in income-rich, time-poor households in the contemporary affluent economies of the West. Following Linder, two `temporal strategies of consumption' are proposed, reflected in the consumption profiles of high status groups. The first is `voracious' consumption, denoting a fast `pace' and variety of leisure participation. The second is inconspicuous consumption — the purchasing of expensive consumer goods without the time to use them or the primary intent to display them. From a political economic perspective a solution is provided as to how to increase consumer spending among those with high disposable incomes and little leisure time.

According to the gender-deviance neutralization hypothesis, men and women in household circumstances that contradict the normal expectations of gender display their gender accordingly, by either increasing or decreasing their contribution to household tasks. In this article, I review and reassess the large-scale quantitative evidence, concluding that considerable doubt has subsequently been cast on this hypothesis. For women, research shows that the original identification of gender-deviance neutralization behavior was questionable, as it failed to take into account women's absolute levels of income. For men, both more recent quantitative and indicative qualitative research suggests that such behavior was always limited to a very small group. Subsequent changes in the contributions to housework of men from lower socioeconomic groups suggest that such display may no longer be evident.

Cross-national trends in paid and unpaid work time over the last 40 years reveal a slow and incomplete convergence of women’s and men’s work patterns. A simplistic extrapolation would indicate a 70—80 year process of gender convergence, with the year 2010 representing an approximate mid-point. However, in conformity with the expectations of gender theory, time use data show that gender segregation in domestic work is quite persistent over time. Women still do the bulk of routine housework and caring for family members while men have increased their contributions disproportionately to non-routine domestic work, suggesting that gender ideologies and the associated ‘doing’ of gender in interaction remain important features of the division of domestic labour. The effects of institutional barriers are also apparent, with differential changes in women’s proportional contribution to routine housework and caring activities related to different national policy clusters.

This article contributes to the study of stratification in consumption activities by focusing on the association between ‘voracious’ leisure, gender and social status. Cultural voraciousness is a measure of the pace and pattern of leisure activities designed to complement the concept of cultural omnivorousness. We show that men are more voracious than women but that the pattern of the relationship with social status is not significantly different: individuals with higher levels of human, economic and cultural capital are more voracious than others regardless of gender. However, we find support for a reinforcement effect of gender and social status, which creates the greatest differential in voraciousness between men with the highest social status and women with the lowest, lending support to the idea that voracious cultural consumption acts as a marker of social boundaries and a sign of social exclusion.

We augment measures of cultural omnivorousness, based theoretically on the breadth of cultural tastes, with a new but related dimension of voraciousness. This reflects a ‘quantitative’ dimension of leisure consumption based upon both the range and the frequency of leisure participation. Voraciousness is theoretically interpreted in relation to notions of cultural repertoires, to the changing pace of work and leisure in late modernity, and to the ‘insatiable’ quality of contemporary consumption. From British time use data, voraciousness proved to share many relationships found in the analysis of omnivorousness, for example, with educational qualifications and job’s social status. Moreover, these relationships persisted over time irrespective of individuals’ time and money resources. Since voraciousness is associated with high status individuals, and since it is not primarily about the availability of time or money, we argue that it is a symbolic status marker associated with notions such as being harried, keeping busy, multitasking, and embracing a diverse cultural consumption pattern.

While recent emphasis has been placed on transformations of gender in the public sphere, changes in gender relations between heterosexual couples in the domestic sphere have been less fully developed in the theoretical literature. The author presents evidence for change at various levels, from the discursive to the quantitative. She outlines a theoretical framework for the analysis of such change based on the “doing gender” and gender consciousness perspectives, readdressed in the light of the new emphasis on discourses of reflexivity and intimacy. She argues for a conception of change that is slow and uneven, in which daily practices and interactions are linked to attitudes and discourse, perhaps over generations.

This paper addresses two important questions in the area of the division of domestic labour. Firstly, what change is observable in the patterns of men and women's time spent in domestic labour over the past twenty years, when taking into account structural factors such as employment patterns and social class? Secondly, among which groups of the population of couples can change be identified? One of the problems of this area of research has been that relatively few studies have systematically analysed change over time using directly comparable large-scale data. Here I present a detailed examination of the nature and pattern of change in the domestic division of labour among couples in Britain based on nationally representative time-use diary data collected in 1975, 1987 and 1997. The data are drawn from a cross-national data archive held by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Notwithstanding the fact that in 1997 women still performed the bulk of domestic work, it is found that, in relation to changes in time use in other areas of life, the increase in men's participation in domestic work (at least as measured in terms of time contributed) should be regarded as significant. In support of this, there had been (i) a reduction in gender inequality in the performance of some of the normatively feminine-associated tasks, (ii) a larger proportional increase in the time contributed to domestic work tasks by men from lower socio-economic strata, to a position of near equality with men from higher socio-economic positions, and (iii) a substantial increase in more `egalitarian' couples.

Quite a lot is already known from the existing sociological literature about the overall time spent by women and men in different domestic tasks, but there is much less information available on more complex sociologically-relevant facets of the experience of time, such as the social context of activities, and the common combinations of different activities. In this paper I use time-use diary data to focus upon three important aspects of the gendered experience of time. These are the social context of domestic tasks in relation to their (gendered) patterns of management, the intensity or density of time-use involving combinations of different activities, and the fragmentation of leisure time according to which activities are responsible for interrupting it. Overall these analyses support the conclusion that women's time is not only more pressured in terms of the intensity of domestic tasks, but that the more enjoyable aspects of their time, such as leisure time, tend to be more fragmented than that of men.

In this paper we have three goals. First, to provide a critique of attempts to theorise in the area of intimate care and domestic division of labour which do not pay adequate attention to issues of plurality/difference. We argue that the ideological environment within which contemporary couples operate consists of more than one existing normative structure, and that therefore an approach which can incorporate the idea of change can only really arise in the context of a focus on plurality and difference among households. Secondly, to discuss large-scale empirical evidence relating to the domestic division of labour which seem to indicate an increasingly narrow basis for blanket ‘no change’ arguments. Historical series of time-use diaries suggest that over a long period consistent changes have occurred in the amount of time that both women and men devote to domestic labour, such that (some) women are doing on average proportionately less, and (some) men proportionately more. Finally, to offer a framework for the discussion of difference and change in gender relations in the home. This focuses on the analysis of the continuing marital conversation as the key arena where the institutional and interactional dimensions of gender relations are played out. Our evidence suggests that the ‘opening up’ of the marital conversation is an important indicator and facilitator of change, and that mechanisms underlying this ‘opening’ can be shown to facilitate higher levels of men's participation in family work.

In this paper the time-use of diaries of a sample of couples are used to explore the relationship between partners' daily pattern of activities and their enjoyment of those activities. By analysing the diaries of couples together it is possible to assess which activities are undertaken simultaneously, which separately, and whether time spent in different activities is more enjoyable spent separately or together. So, in addition to the usual information obtainable from time diary analysis on the domestic division of labour, these data provide information on the quality of time, and the ways in which couples may manipulate it in order to increase the proportion of enjoyable time (which, it is shown, is more enjoyable when enjoyed together). The wider significance of this approach is that an empirical link is provided between `work-related' debates on the domestic division of labour, and those on the nature of affective relationships between couples found within the sociology of emotions.

In understanding processes of change in family work, examining differences in the degree of change between different social groups (‘changing differences’) can be more informative than focusing either on overall changes or on cross-sectional differences by social group alone. British and US time-use data sets are used to examine 30-year changes in men’s contribution to domestic work and child care by differences in educational attainment. Changes are compared for fathers in dual-earner couples with different levels of education. The findings illustrate two contrasting changing differences: a ‘catch-up’ effect over time between fathers with different educational attainment in the case of domestic labour; and in the case of child care, a widening of the gap by education. The challenges posed by these changing differences for common structural explanations of change in family work are discussed.

In this article, the authors explore how data on the use of time might be used to investigate the multilevel connections between family-related policies and fathers' child care time in a cross-national context. The authors present a case study analysis of “fathering strategies” in which empirical findings from time-use data are compared with detailed policy information from Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These analyses show that time-use data can not only shed light on the effects of specific policies in different national contexts but also point to the need to consider the complexity of multiple policies and their adoption in specific national contexts across time. The authors describe the development of a cross-national, cross-time database that combines time-use data with relevant social and family policy information, with the aim of providing a multilevel research tool to those interested in exploring further the relationships between policy and family work.

The paper examines some of the technical and epistemological questions raised by the debate on linking qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. For illustrative purposes, we discuss a qualitative research project on the distribution of resources within households currently being conducted by the British Household Panel Study at the University of Essex. Initially, we provide a general background to the current research, moving on to examine some of the methodological problems which emerge and the epistemological questions which they raise. These include the general issue of classification; the difficulties of defining the analytical boundaries of households; the particular problems associated with using households as longitudinal units of analysis; and the relationship between actors' accounts and the conceptual categories which we use to describe behaviour. We suggest that the tendency to see qualitative and quantitative methodologies as mutually exclusive and antagonistic paradigms is a misleading representation of the reality of social research practice, and argue for the importance of maintaining a qualitative component in the BHPS in order to understand the complex processes involved in the intra‐household distribution of resources. 1991 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review

In this paper the authors first address arguments that have been made within the sociological literature concerning the nature of time; in particular they question the validity of the distinction between concepts of natural and social time. Secondly, they discuss some direct sociological critiques of the use of time-use diary methodology. They argue that much of the substance of these critiques relies upon a limited conception of such diaries, based upon relatively crude early analyses of time-use data. In fact diary materials have the potential to provide measures of many of the aspects of the experience of time which they have been accused of ignoring. They present a series of example analyses which consider : the rhythm and sequencing of daily activities; the occurrence of multiple simultaneous activities; the duration of specific activities; the enjoyment of time spent in different activities; and the social context of activities

In this paper the author contributes to the critique of the inconsistencies of the concepts of modern and traditional when applied in macro-sociological accounts of the family, through the examination of a relatively under-utilized indicator of household behaviour: time use. Israeli Jewish households offer the opportunity to examine a range of patterns of family life along dimensions of differentiation such as ethnicity, education and religiosity. In some instances, these patterns display characteristics which have been used in the literature to differentiate traditional and modern variants. For example, it is clear that those identifying as not religious conform most, in terms of leisure participation and shared eating behaviour, to notions of the modern secular family. However, the complexity of the interrelationships between religiosity, ethnicity and time use demonstrates the pitfalls of the uncritical association of religious identification with traditional family behaviours. There is a need to take account of household behaviours and characteristics other than those customarily analysed in order to facilitate a fuller understanding of dimensions of differentiation.

"Only connect" - gender relations and ageing ageing, gender and sociological theory theorizing age and gender relations conformity and resistance as women age gendered work, gendered retirement choice and constraint in the retirement of older married women the married lives of older people "I'm the eyes and she's the arms" - changes in gender roles in advanced old age mutual care but differential esteem - caring between older couples gender roles, employment and informal care gender and elder abuse gender and social support networks in later life connecting gender and ageing - a new beginning?

The paper addresses some macro-sociological questions about changes in broad categories of time-use. The focus is on large-scale cross-national time trends from developed countries in paid and unpaid work, and leisure. Reference is made to some well-known sociological and historical accounts of such change, and to the fact that time-use diary data has only relatively recently become available for analysing trends over time. The data used are drawn from a comparative cross-time data archive held by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex University, comprising successive time-use diary surveys from a range of industrialized countries collected from the 1960s to the 1990s. The time use evidence suggests relative stability in the balance between work and leisure time over the period covered by the analyses. Some alternative explanations are advanced for why there seems to be a gap between this evidence and, on the other hand, the burgeoning literature in both academic and popular media addressing the 'time famine' and, on the other, people's professed experience of what is happening to their time.