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The policy implications of time use surveys: Lessons from South Africa
It is now widely accepted that unpaid work, both SNA and non-SNA, is an integral part of the economy and society. That is, it is difficult to understand the functioning of an economy or a society comprehensively without understanding the role of unpaid work. Unpaid work is also a key to understanding the dynamics of gender inequalities and an important input to designing of gender-equality policies. It is necessary therefore to estimate the size of paid and unpaid economies and to understand their characteristics, including their interlinkages, in order to understand the functioning of the total economy. Unpaid work, or the work that does not receive direct remuneration, is significant in both developed and developing countries. However it holds special importance in developing countries because one observes significant unpaid work in these countries within the purview of SNA work (for example, work covered under the production boundary of the UN-SNA) as well as non-SNA work (for example, work falling within the general production boundary). As a result, the total size of unpaid work is usually much higher in developing countries compared to that in developed countries. Some of the major concerns of developing countries, such as poverty, low human development, informal labor, gender inequalities and so on, can be understood well only if one understands the nature and characteristics of unpaid work in these economies.
With the emergence of developing countries on the scene, time use surveys have acquired a new focus. These countries have seen several additional uses of these surveys, such as netting economic work of the poor (men and women both) and improving thereby the work force/labour force statistics; improving estimates of national income by getting better data on SNA activities, including additional activities into the national accounts system incorporated in the 1993 SNA; and drawing useful policy guidelines for poverty reduction, employment generation and welfare promotion. These countries are gradually evolving suitable concepts, survey methodology, classification of activities and valuation techniques.
A major objective of conducting time use surveys is to make the unpaid work of men, and particularly women, visible and to estimate its value in satellite accounts to start with, to integrate it with the national income accounts system later on. It is important to value unpaid work because it contributes significantly to human welfare and human wellbeing. • It gives visibility to unpaid work which is otherwise invisible in official data systems, • The visibility helps in integrating unpaid work in policy making in the areas of labour and employment, technology and skill formation, infrastructure, credit etc,. • The predominance of women in unpaid work which restricts their development opportunities has implications for policy formulation for gender equity, and • Inclusion of unpaid work in national income in developing countries tends to improve international comparability of national income data as several unp aid activities in developing countries fall in the domain of paid activities in developed countries.
The utilization of time use data for exploring employment issues has received little attention in economic analysis. Using data from the 2000 South African national time use survey we argue that a gender-aware understanding of how men and women organize their daily life can help identify labor market and subsistence work that are missed in labor force surveys, thus complementing the information they provide. Further, information on the time spent in jobrelated search and household work provide insights on the interconnectedness of gender inequalities in the labor market and within the household. Our analysis of the time use patterns of 10,465 working age women and men, shows that a non-trivial proportion of men and women classified as either "not in the labor force" or "unemployed" actually engaged in subsistence, temporary and casual forms of employment. Secondly, we find that regardless of their labor force status, women's and men's hours of unpaid work donot vary greatly. These affect not only employment options of women but also their ability to look for work. Thirdly, time use data helps identify the salient characteristics of these individuals and the type of occupations they are engaged in.
Time-use data alone are insufficient for estimating household technology and the behavioral relationships that determine the allocation of time among activities; to estimate household technology requires data on all outputs and all inputs, whereas to estimate behavioral relationships requires recognizing the roles of preferences, intrahousehold allocation, and technology.
This article draws attention to the complexity of the social arrangements which form the background to travel decisions and
travel behaviour in the low income context. It focuses on the ‘borrowing’ and ‘repaying’ of ‘time favours’ amongst low-income
households arguing that these inter-household exchanges of favours are used to overcome, albeit partially, the financial resource
constraints of low-income budgets. Using evidence from Merseyside, the article explores the interaction between financial
constraints and time constraints in the making of travel arrangements in low-income households. A vignette, drawn from the
Mersey evidence, provides a concrete illustration of the importance of these factors in practical family life. Moving beyond
the sociological analysis of inter-household support structures, the article indicates new high technology European public
transport developments which can usefully be harnessed as part of social policy to overcome some of the constraints which
low-income families presently experience in gaining access to critical resources such as health.
The national budget generally has different implications for women and men, but it is put together without consideration of gender equality. Tools are being developed to integrate gender analysis into appraisal of delivery of public services, composition of expenditure and revenue, and overall budget strategy. A gender-aware budget statement can indicate the extent to which the budget is gender-balanced, and be used to monitor resource allocations and outcomes. The Commonwealth Secretariat is facilitating a pilot project to explore the practical use of some of these tools in preparation and presentation of the budget in South Africa, Sri Lanka and Barbados. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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