Do men and women differ in time-use? Analysing the complexity of activity patterns in Germany

Abstract

Individuals’ participation in daily routine activities varies according to the situations they live in. Gender roles and marital status drive them to take part in various economic, leisure and travel activities. Married (or cohabiting) individuals, in comparison to singles, juggle activities interdependently with their partners' resources and work allocation, resulting in potentially complex intersecting schedules. The primary aim of this research is to explore the complexity (measured using Shannon’s entropy) of individuals’ activity patterns by considering diverse factors such as demographics, job/education, residential location, travel behaviour, gendered multitasking behaviour, time use preferences and partner interactions. To examine variations in complexity, we developed three separate models for single and partnered respondents, and all respondents, respectively. We used German Time Use Survey 2012/13 data and employed multilevel linear regression models. Gender interaction variables were additionally included in the analysis to examine the gender differences in coefficients. In general, our results suggest that activity pattern complexity is positively associated with demographics (being women, having young children), job/education (high levels of education, working in non-market sector), travel behaviour (number of trips, car, public transport and cycling), time spent on unpaid multitasking, preference for time use (leisure and unpaid work) and additional work hour preferences, whereas full-time/overtime working, paid multitasking negatively affects the complexity. For partnered respondents, factors such as increase in age, increase in income, working in shifts and time spent on paid multitasking have significant negative effects on the complexity of activity patterns, while partners’ time spent on unpaid work and leisure activities positively affects respondents’ complexity. The gender interaction with multitasking behaviour reveals that men’s activity patterns are increasingly complex with more time spent on unpaid multitasking, while for women, the complexity of activity patterns is positively associated with more time spent on paid multitasking.

Keywords

• Time use
• Activity pattern
• Entropy measure
• Travel behaviour
• Partner interaction
• Preferences