Traditional Modernity and Religiosity: Time Use in Israeli Households

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.