At an academic Conference organized by Eustat and the Basque Sociology and Political Science Association today Eustat will present a new publication which analyses the distribution of time in the Basque population. Among the conclusions drawn from the “Survey on Time Budgets. Monographs”, the most important is that sex constitutes the key factor to determines the most noticeable differences in the use of time.

The publication had the support of statistical information provided by the last Survey on Time Budgets carried out by Eustat. The use of this data makes it possible to know the time allotted to different activities by individuals and social groups, according to variables such as age, sex, occupational situation, studies or the province of residence.

The activities on which the Survey obtained information are grouped under the following titles: physiological needs (sleep, eat and personal care, specially), paid work and training, housework, care for persons in the home, social life, active and passive leisure, and travel.

From the information provided by the Survey, the time that people assigned to each of the actions that make up an ordinary, working or holiday day was analysed. This enables, on the one hand, comparisons to be made in time and, on the other, comparisons to be established with other geographic areas that have time use surveys using a similar methodology.

We talk more, go out less and women work outside the home more each day

Time dedicated to talking has increased, above all by phone (14 minutes), but there is a decrease in social relations. There was a 28% decrease in time spent visiting friends or going out for a drink and almost half of women take part in a work or training activity during working days compared to 44% during the previous decade.

In the study we can see that sex is precisely the variable that determines the most considerable differences in the use of time, especially in the basic activities that make up the established social order, such as those related to paid and unpaid work, and free time.

This is such that males spend 4 hours and 14 minutes on average daily on paid extra-household work and training, while for women the figure falls to 2 hours and 35 minutes. The difference that separates both social categories in the time they spend on household work is even more relevant: males spend 1 hour and 10 minutes on average, while females spend three times as much time, reaching 3 hours and 31 minutes. It is true that there is a slight convergence in the positions of men and women, but this is occurring at quite a slow rate.

With regard to free time, it does not appear that we are heading towards a leisure society, as we have reduced the time we dedicate to leisure by half an hour, although this has happened basically in passive leisure and affects the consumption of media and communication above all.

An average weekday

Throughout the average weekday, almost half the day (11 hours and 50 minutes) is spent on physiological needs such as rest, personal care and meals, and a quarter of the day (6 hours and 7 minutes) on activities related to work, including both time dedicated to paid work and time dedicated to training and housework and care for persons in the home. The rest of daily time is spent, on the one hand, with a little more than an hour (1 hour and 8 minutes) travelling for different reasons, and on the other, time is fundamentally dedicated to different types of leisure activities, and in this daily average accounts for almost five hours (4 hours and 54 minutes) of the time available.

The Conference

The conference, which will held in the Library Conference Room of the Basque University UPV-EHU, will be attended by the five authors who participated in writing the book, all of whom are outstanding lecturers and researchers at the university. Thus, Ramón Ramos, professor of Social Change at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, will talk about the general situation of time use in the A.C. of the Basque Country, its structure, dynamics and comparison.

Arantxa Rodríguez, lecturer in Applied Economics at the University of the Basque Country, will focus her paper on analysing work time in our Autonomous Community, while María Luisa Setién, incumbent lecturer in Sociology at the University of Deusto, will talk on leisure and social participation.

Unpaid work time in the A.C. of the Basque Country is the subject to be presented by Cristina García, lecturer in Sociology at the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid, and time used for mobility and trips will be the area covered by the researcher from the Department of Sociology of the University of the Basque Country, Matxalen Legarreta.

Note: For further information or to interview any of the authors of the book “Survey on time budgets. Monographs”, contact Manu Riveiros, tel: 615 771 476.