The document describes various survey tools that can be used to collect time use data, which is important for analyzing gender dynamics and the impact of programs on workload. It discusses why collecting time use data is useful, important considerations for sampling design and instrument selection. It provides examples of how the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) and the Nepal Suaahara Project have adapted time use modules. Key lessons include balancing detail in time diaries with respondent burden, validating recall data, and how results can provide insights on workload, time costs of programs, and nutrition outcomes.

1. Survey Tools for
Collecting Time Use Data
Hazel Malapit
Research Coordinator
Poverty, Health and Nutrition Division
International Food Policy Research Institute
h.malapit@cgiar.org
A4NH Gender-Nutrition Methods Workshop
December 6-7, Nairobi, Kenya

2. Time

4. Why collect time use?
• Time use data can be used to construct
indicators along two pathways:
– Workload (one of the 10 indicators in the WEAI)
– Female energy expenditure
• Time allocated to agriculture also influences
other pathways
• What is impact of your program on how men
and women allocate time, and does it matter
for nutrition?

5. Sampling design and selection
• Sampling household members
– more than one household member?
– how should they be selected?
– for gender analysis, need to be able to compare
male and female’s time
• Sampling time units
– should survey cover all seasons of the year?
– which day/week should be sampled for each
respondent? (eg, typical day)

6. “Yesterday (or last week), how much
time did you spend on activity x?”
Types of survey instruments
• Time diary
OR
– Report all activities done over a prescribed period of time
“How many hours endingday of each activity,
per time (or per week)
including beginning and
description of activity, and contextual information
do you usually spend on activity x? required
for analysis
• Stylized analogues of time diaries
– Respondents are asked to recall the amount of time
allocated to specified activities over a period (day, week or
year)
– Only total time spent on the activity is reported, not the
specific time of day activity is performed

7. Designing the time diary
• Exhaustive activity list
– Level of detail
– What context variables to include in activity
descriptions (paid/unpaid, location, with whom,
etc)
• Time intervals
– Open or fixed (eg, 15-min intervals)
• Simultaneous activities
– If collected, will they be prioritized as primary and
secondary?

8. EXAMPLE: CARE-BANGLADESH
STRENGTHENING THE DAIRY
VALUE CHAIN PROJECT

9. Overall objective of the SDVC project
• Goal: Double the dairy-related incomes of smallholder farmers in
northwest Bangladesh by addressing the major challenges to
improving smallholder participation in the value chain by
•
•
•
Mobilizing farmers through formation of small holder dairy farmer
groups
Building capacities of selected farmer group leaders, dairy
collectors, livestock health workers, AI workers
Increasing access to milk markets and productivity enhancing inputs
• Targeted Beneficiaries: 36,400 smallholder dairy farmers of
NorthWest Bangladesh
•
•
•
•
with weak dairy value chains
prone to natural disasters such as floods
functionally landless (less than 0.5 acres of cultivable land)
and earning about USD 20 – 30 equivalent per month

10. Study Design
• Longitudinal quant impact evaluation (2008
and 2012); propensity weighted regressions
•
Treatment group
•
Control 1: same unions (with chilling plant) but not SDVC area
•
Control 2: unions without chilling plant
• Qualitative research on gender related topics
including ownership and control over
agricultural assets

11. Key Questions
Questions
Quant
Qual
Did the SDVCP increase women’s and/or men’s
ownership of assets? What types of assets?


Did increases in some types of assets change
gender norms around ownership/control of those
assets?

Did participation in specific nodes of the dairy
value chain change gender norms regarding
decisionmaking in these areas?


Were there time costs? What were the tradeoffs
involved?



13. Time costs and tradeoffs
Dairy activities
Household activities

14. Dairy plus hh activities

15. Impact on time allocation
• Key results:
– Adult women increase time on dairy activities
– Adult men and young boys contribute to dairy activities
but not to household activities
– Young girls contribute to household activities but not to
dairy activities
• Adult women are likely to experience some
disproportionate time burden from program
participation
• In absolute terms, adult women still contribute the
largest amount of time in the household to both dairyrelated and household maintenance activities.

16. EXAMPLE: WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN
AGRICULTURE INDEX (WEAI)

17. The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture
Index (WEAI)
• Developed by USAID, IFPRI and OPHI as a monitoring
tool for the US government’s Feed the Future (FTF)
Initiative
• New survey-based tool designed to measure women’s
empowerment and inclusion in the agriculture sector
• Men and women from the same household are
interviewed
• Index components designed to be applicable across
countries and cultures

18. Five domains of empowerment
Indicators are used to build individual empowerment profiles

19. Five domains of empowerment
Indicators are used to build individual empowerment profiles

20. Features of the WEAI time module
• Sampling design
– Population-based survey representative of FTF zone
– Respondents are primary male and primary female
decision makers in HH
• Survey instrument
– Time diary with 18 activity categories
• Mode of collection
– Interview
– 24-hour recall with 15 minute time intervals
– Primary and secondary activities are collected

21. Training and prerequisites
• How do people tell time/duration of activities?
– Referring to certain events of the day (eg, sunrise,
sunset, call for prayer, school bell, etc)
– OR, clock time – easier now with mobile phones
• Enumerators are trained to memorize the list of
activities and know how to classify responses
• Administer the HH questionnaire first, so
enumerators already know the respondent’s
main livelihood activities
• Ideally, interview both male and female
respondents simultaneously and in private

22. Ask respondent to narrate their activities in the previous day
from the time they woke up to the time they went to bed.
MODULE G6: TIME ALLOCATION - continued

23. “Yesterday, when did you wake up in the morning?”
MODULE G6: TIME ALLOCATION - continued

24. “Yesterday, when did you wake up in the morning?”
6:30 am
MODULE G6: TIME ALLOCATION

25. “And then what did you do?”
MODULE G6: TIME ALLOCATION - continued

26. “And then what did you do?”
I spent about 45 minutes with using toilet/bathroom, washing face, including prayer.
MODULE G6: TIME ALLOCATION
1
2

27. “And then what did you do?”
I ate breakfast for 30 minutes, then I worked on my farm for about 6 hours.
MODULE G6: TIME ALLOCATION
1
2

28. “And then what did you do?”
I ate breakfast for 30 minutes, then I worked on my farm for about 6 hours.
MODULE G6: TIME ALLOCATION
1
2

29. “Workload” is defined as time
spent in categories E - P
•
•
Includes unpaid or non-market
activities (eg, subsistence
production, childcare)
Includes primary and
secondary activities
Workload = sum of primary
+ 0.5(sum of secondary)
Inadequate achievement if:
Workload > 10.5 hours per day

30. Common questions
• How well does it capture seasonality?
– Past 24-hours may not be a typical day
• How well does it capture intensity of women’s workloads?
– Collects simultaneous activities, but enumerators must be welltrained to get good data
– Inadequacy cutoff 10.5 can be adapted to context
– Can analyze which activities are done simultaneously
• How well does it capture intrahousehold dynamics?
– Collects data from primary male and female only, no info on
other household members’ time use
• How long does it take and how much does it cost?
– According to DATA (Bangladesh) the WEAI time module takes
only 15 mins to administer
– A less detailed time diary takes more time

31. EXAMPLE: NEPAL SUAAHARA PROJECT

32. Nepal Suaahara Project: Introduction

Timing and Funding: 5 year USAID-funded multisectoral program in
20 food & nutrition insecure districts (2011-2016)

Suaahara’s Objective: to improve the nutritional status of pregnant
and lactating women and children under two years of age directly
addressing the vulnerable points of development which result in
stunting.

Partners: Save the Children, Helen Keller International, JHPIEGO,
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for
Communication Programs, Nepali Technical Assistance Group,
Nutrition Promotion and Consultancy Service and Nepal Water for
Health.

33. Suaahara’s Program Districts
HUMLA
DARCHULA
BAJHANG
MUGU
BAITADI
BAJURA
JUMLA
DOTI
ACHHAM
DOLPA
KALIKOT
MUSTANG
DAILEKH
JAJARKOT
KAILALI
RUKUM
MANANG
SURKHET
MYAGDI
SALYAN
BARDIYA
KASKI
ROLPA
BANKE
LAMJUNG
GORKHA
RASUWA
GULMI
DANG
TANAHU
NUWAKOT
PALPA
BKT
CHITWAN
LALIT
TAPLEJUNG
KAVRE
SAVE
OKHALDHUNGA
HKI
NPCS
NEWAH
MAHOTTARI
KHOTANG
BHOJPUR
DHANKUTA
ILAM
SIRAHA
SAPTARI
JHAPA

34. Suaahara’s Intervention Areas






Maternal and child nutrition
Maternal, newborn, and child health services
Family planning services
Water, sanitation, and hygiene
Agriculture/homestead food production
Key aspects of all programming:
• Behavior Change Communication
• Gender and Social Inclusion
• Monitoring and Evaluation
• Capacity Building

35. The Evaluation Question

What is the impact of Suaahara on:
• Stunting and anemia among children under five
years of age
• Infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices
among children 0-24 months of age

36. Modified WEAI time module
• Nepal Suaahara Baseline Survey 2012
– survey included 8 intervention districts where
Suaahara planned to implement programs, and 8
matched comparison districts
– implemented the WEAI modules
• Refer to previous day if typical, if not use day
before
• Modified time intervals: log activities in 30min intervals on a blank sheet, then
enumerator sums up time in the table

37. Nepal Suaahara Baseline Survey 2012

38. Nepal Suaahara Baseline Survey 2012

39. Nepal Results: Summary from OLS and IV regressions
Maternal outcomes
Diet
diversity
Workload (hours) +
Child outcomes
BMI
Diet
diversity
WAZ
WHZ
HAZ
- (OLS),
n.s. (IV)
- (OLS)
+,
- for < 2
+,
+
- for < 2
Higher workload is significantly associated with
dietary diversity for mothers and children, and
children’s height-for-age z-scores

40. Energy Expenditure
• Detailed time diary
• Convert time data to
energy expenditures:
WHO (1985). Energy and
protein requirements, WHO
Tech Rep Ser 1985; No. 724.

42. Kinabo et al (2003), “Seasonal variation in physical activity patterns, energy
expenditure and nutritional status of women in a rural village in Tanzania”

43. Final thoughts on using the tool
• What are your analytical objectives?
• Resource constraints?