sociologists, housework may be a „gendered’ activity. It is „expected’ in many cultures that
women perform certain types of housework (like laundry and cooking) while men perform
others (like home repair). There is a rapidly growing literature now (Bittman et al (2003) was
one of the first, Evertsson and Nermo (2004) is a more recent example) that provides evidence
that individuals „do gender’. We avoid this complication by focusing more on leisure time,
estimating housework time equations only for comparison. Leisure is not a gender-specific
activity.
TIME USE
The type of time use data employed in this empirical literature on intrahousehold
allocation varies considerably. Some use questionnaire data intended to identify only the
individual primarily responsible for the activity (see for example Fuwa 2004), some have
questionnaire-based information on usual time spent per week (see for example Evertsson and
Nermo 2004), and some use time diary reports (for example Bittman et al 2003). There are
advantages and disadvantages to each type.
Though time diary data are generally held to be more accurate than questionnaire data
on time use (Robinson 1985), time diary reports suffer because they provide a „thin’ sample.
Typical time diary surveys provide information on only one 24 hour period. That period may
be unrepresentative of „usual’ time use for any of a number of reasons - sickness, vacation... .
Further, diary-based time use reports are likely sensitive to the day of the week and the time
of year, not to mention possibly also the weather on the diary day. The housework data
usually examined are particularly susceptible to „thinness’ because many housework chores
need not be performed daily nor are the different chores readily substitutable (doing laundry
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