Abstract
This study compares work time data collected by the German Time Use Survey (GTUS) using the diary method with stylized work time estimates from the GTUS, the German Socio-Economic Panel, and the German Microcensus. Although on average the differences between the time-diary data and the interview data is not large, our results show that significant deviations exist between these two techniques for certain types of individuals, especially those with long working hours and flexible work schedules. We also show that stylized work time estimates have insufficient variation to reproduce a true picture of working hours.
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Notes
At least in comparison to income data.
Interestingly, the authors also show that the extent to which Swedish public policy encourages fathers to take a more active role in child rearing is strongly dependent on the choice of data source. They do conclude, however, that “the time diary data do enable us to find out something we cannot find out using ordinary survey data;” (Carlin and Flood 1997, p. 181).
The distribution of days is as follows: Monday (13.9%), Tuesday (14.2%), Wednesday (14.1%), Thursday (15.1%), Friday (12.6%), Saturday (14.2%), Sunday (15.7%).
To test the equality of grouped stylized estimates a 99% confidence level is chosen.
We also ran the regression models for men and women separately. A notable result is that the dummy variable for dependent children under 6 in model (2) is only significant in the female sample.
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Otterbach, S., Sousa-Poza, A. How Accurate are German Work-time Data? A Comparison of Time-diary Reports and Stylized Estimates. Soc Indic Res 97, 325–339 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9504-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9504-z