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THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVIEW
APPENDIX A:
INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON USING SPLIT TIME SLOTS
Here we take an alternative approach to calculating the time spent on
different activities than that applied in the paper. Instead of assigning a
priority to one activity in the case of simultaneous activities (multi-tasking),
we divide the time slot between the activities. Therefore, if two activities are
recorded in one 15 minute time-slot we allocate 7.5 minutes to each task, if
three activities are recorded at once we allocate 5 minutes to each, and so on.
This method has the advantage that involves no assumptions by the
researcher as to which is the main activity. However, the disadvantage of this
approach is that it ignores lessons from the time-use research literature on the
way people combine activities. For example, using the splitting time slot
technique means that background activities such as listening to the radio
while eating breakfast will be accorded equal priority to other activities. This
means that passive leisure will be over-estimated compared to studies that
allow respondents to record only one activity or that ask respondents to define
their main activity.
Furthermore, leisure combined with some other activity e.g., listening to
radio while travelling to work will be counted as leisure even though its
combination with such activities is likely to make it a less ‘pure’ form of leisure
(Bittman and Wajcman, 2004). Sleep is assigned part of the time slot even if it
is recorded with something else. Therefore, these estimates should not be seen
as a superior measure of time-use than those presented in the paper. The
presentation of results using alternative treatments of multiple activity allows
us to assess the consequences of adopting different measurement approaches
for our analyses. No one measure can be considered definitive.
In Table A1 we present alternative estimates of time use to those
presented in the international comparisons, Tables 4 and 5 shown earlier, and
we then discuss the implications of using alternative measures for the
comparison.
Using this method of calculation we find that, free time is considerably
higher among Irish men than in the other 5 countries, 31 minutes more than
the next country Germany, and a greater difference than that was found with
the priority measure reported in Table 4. Personal care/eating significantly is
lower for Irish men than for other European men. Here the difference is
also greater than what we find using the priority measure. Irish men still have
the highest level of paid work of the six countries. Travel and sleep estimates
are not affected by change in measurement. The total committed time of
Irish men is now middle of the table rather than on the higher side, as in
Table 4.