How do older Americans spend their time?

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 130, Issue 5, 2007, Pages 8-26

  Krantz Kent, Rachel ^a   Stewart, Jay ^a  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34548178724     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. An emlpoyed individual, who has a higher income and opportunity cost of time, is more likely to hire others to prepare meals, clean house, and do other household chores. Thus, one would expect employed individuals to spend less time engaged in household production activities than retired individuals spend.
2. Leisure activities are considered to be a "normal" good, meaning the consumption of leisure increases as income increases.
3. Maria Mireault and Anton de Man, "Suicidal Ideation among Older Adults: Personal Variables, Stress, and Social Support," Social Behavior and Personality, 1996, vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 385-92.
4. Lynne C. Giles, Gary F. V. Glonek, Mary A. Luszcz, and Gary R. Andrews, "Effect of Social Networks on 10-year Survival in Very Old Australians: The Australian Longitudinal Study of Aging," Journal of Epidemiology Community Health, 2005, vol. 59, pp. 574-79.
5. John P. Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey, Time for Life: The Surprising Ways Americans Spend Their Time (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).
6. "At home" and "alone" are not the same as "home alone," although they may overlap.
7. Liana C. Sayer, Suzanne M. Bianchi, and John P. Robinson, "Time Use Patterns of Older Americans," Report to NIA, University of Maryland, June 30, 2001.
8. Anne H. Gauthier and Timothy M. Smeeding, "Patterns of Time Use of People Age 55 to 64 Years Old: Some Cross-National Comparisons," Center for Policy Research at Syracuse University, Aging Sudies Paper No. 20, March 2000; on the Internet at www-cpr.max-well.syr.edu/ agpapser/age20abs.htm (visited Mar. 29, 2007).
9. Anne H. Gauthier and Timothy Smeeding, "Historical Trends in the Patterns of Time Use of Older Adults," Organization for Ecocomic Cooperation and Development, Aging Working Paper, June 2001; on the Internet at www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/5/2430978.pdf (visited Mar. 29, 2007).
10. ATUS estimates can be generated for higher age brackets than was possible in many past U.S. time-use studies. In 2003 and 2004, age data were top coded at age 80 in the ATUS. This means that individuals aged 80 and older who participated in the survey carry an age value of "80" in the data.
11. While this paper was undergoing final review, the 2005 ATUS data were released. Data for the years 2003-05 can be downloaded from the American Time Use Survey home page, www.bls.gov\tus (visited Mar. 29, 2007).
12. The survey referred to is the National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS), a 2-year probability-based telephone survey (n = 9,386) of exposure-related human activities in the United States, sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The survey's primary purpose was to provide comprehensive and current exposure information for use in probabilistic population exposure models. For more information, visit www.nature.com/jea/journal/v11/n3/abs/ 7500165a.html and www.timeuse.org/information/studies/data/ usa-1992-1994.php.
13. For more details about the American Time Use Survey, visit the ATUS home page, www.bls.gov/tus/home.htm (visited Mar. 29, 2007);
14. see also Daniel S. Hamermesh, Harley Frazis, and Jay Stewart, "Data Watch: The American Time Use Survey,"Journal of Economic Perspectives, winter 2005, pp. 221-32;
15. Diane Herz and Michael Horrigan, "Planning, Designing, and Executing the BLS American Time-Use Survey," Monthly Labor Review, October 2004, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/ 2004/10/contents.htm (visited Mar. 29, 2007).
16. For information about the design of the ATUS activity coding lexicon, see Kristina Shelley, "Developing the American Time Use Survey Activity Classification System," Monthly Labor Review, June 2005; on the Internet at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/06/ contents.htm (visited Mar. 29, 2007).
17. In the ATUS, labor force data are collected with a slightly modified version of the questions used to collect labor force information in the monthly Current Population Survey. 'The ATUS distinguishes between "at work" and "with job but absent from work" for the employed and between "looking" and "on layoff" for the unemployed. It does not distinguish between different reasons for not being in the labor force.
18. The ATUS weighting procedures ensure that each day of the week is equally represented at the aggregate level, but this representation may not hold for more detailed demographic groups.
19. In 2002, the civilian noninstitutional population included 95 percent of the U.S. population aged 65 and older. (See Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, Older Americans 2004: Key Indicators of Well-Being (Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, Nov. 2004).)
20. Christopher C. Ruhm, "Bridge Jobs and Partial Retirement," Journal of Labor Economics, October 1990, pp. 482-501.
21. Household work is defined as time spent doing household activities, purchasing goods and services, and caring for household members, plus related travel time.
22. This percentage is equal to the difference between nonworkers and full-time workers in time spent in the activity, divided by the difference in time spent working (which is equal to the time spent working by full-time workers). Negative values indicate that nonworkers spent less time on the activity than full-time workers did.
23. For women, eight of the differences in differences are statistically significant at the 10-percent level or better, with half of those being significant at the 5-percent level or better. For men, only two of the differences in differences are statistically significant at the 10-percent level or better.
24. See Jay Stewart, "Assessing Alternative Dissimilarity Indexes for Comparing Activity Profiles," The electronic Journal of Time Use Research, August 2006; on the Internet at www.eijtur.org/ (visited Mar. 29, 2007).
25. i. i=1 i=1
26. See the 2004 ATUS Activity Lexicon for a list of codes and corresponding activities, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/tus/lexiconoex2004.pdf (visited Mar. 29, 2007).
27. To compute the dissimilarity index values in tables 5, 6, and 7, it was necessary to further restrict the sample by excluding respondents who reported spending more than two hours in activities that could not be coded. This restriction was necessary because time spent in activities that could not be coded represented a much greater fraction of time for full-time workers on nonwork days. Other comparisons were not affected by this restriction. For additional information about the index calculations, please contact the authors.
28. The bootstrap procedure is generally used to generate standard errors in situations where computation is difficult or would require overly restrictive assumptions. But the procedure also provides a way to estimate the bias in the original estimate and, hence, to generate a bias-corrected estimate. The bias-corrected estimate, however, can have a larger mean squared error than the original estimate, so it is not necessarily an improvement. The effect of small samples on the value of the DI, apart from any real differences between the groups, was investigated, and it was clear that smaller samples resulted in larger values of the DI. Given the magnitude of this effect, it seems clear that the benefit of reducing the bias outweighs the higher mean squared error. (For additional information about the index calculations, contact the authors.)
29. A job is an income-generating activity; here, we refer to other income-generating activities (for example, selling arts and crafts, baby-sitting, lawn mowing, and so forth).
30. These estimates are available from the authors on request.
31. The time that individuals spent talking on the phone was not included, because it amounted to very little time, on average. This exclusion does not affect the results.
32. Individuals are considered to be "with" the respondent if they are in the same room as, or are accompanied by, the respondent.
33. These activities correspond to activity codes 0101xx, 0102xx, 0104xx, 0501xx, 500105, and 500106. (See the 2004 ATUS Activity Lexicon for a list of codes and corresponding activities, on the Internet at www.bls.gov/tus/lexiconnoex2004.pdf (visited Mar. 29, 2007).)