IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/transp/v47y2020i2d10.1007_s11116-018-9924-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A comparative analysis of discretionary time allocation for social and non-social activities in the U.S. between 2003 and 2013

Author

Listed:
  • Moyin Li

    (Pace, the Suburban Bus Division of the Regional Transport Authority)

  • Nebiyou Tilahun

    (University of Illinois at Chicago)

Abstract

We investigate changes in the allocation of discretionary time to social activities between 2003 and 2013 in the United States using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Within this period, several changes particularly around communication technologies have occurred, including the mass adoption of web and video enabled smart phones. Other advances include social networking platforms, low cost subscription based streaming movies, multi-person online gaming etc., which collectively can alter how people spend their discretionary time and their social activity time use. Summary statistics from the ATUS show a decline in the number of people reporting face-to-face social activities and a growth in the average leisure time spent alone between 2003 and 2013. At the same time, we observe modest declines in average time allotted to social activities and to mandatory activities. We separate time spent on discretionary activities into social activity time use and non-social activity time use and employ five doubly censored Tobit models to investigate time allocation for social and non-social activities between these two time points. These models show that the relative proportion of discretionary time allotted to face-to-face social activities has declined between 2003 and 2013. The apportionment of social to non-social time is also influenced by other sociodemographic variables such as gender, age, household structure, education and work hours. We summarize the implications of these findings to transportation and beyond.

Suggested Citation

  • Moyin Li & Nebiyou Tilahun, 2020. "A comparative analysis of discretionary time allocation for social and non-social activities in the U.S. between 2003 and 2013," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 893-909, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:transp:v:47:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11116-018-9924-1
    DOI: 10.1007/s11116-018-9924-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11116-018-9924-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11116-018-9924-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean Kimmel & Rachel Connelly, 2007. "Mothers’ Time Choices: Caregiving, Leisure, Home Production, and Paid Work," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    2. Chandra Bhat & Rajul Misra, 1999. "Discretionary activity time allocation of individuals between in-home and out-of-home and between weekdays and weekends," Transportation, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 193-229, May.
    3. Fernandez, Cristina & Sevilla-Sanz, Almudena, 2006. "Social norms and household time allocation," IESE Research Papers D/648, IESE Business School.
    4. Michael Bittman, 1999. "Social Participation and Family Welfare: The Money and Time Costs of Leisure," Discussion Papers 0095, University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre.
    5. Ram Pendyala & Toshiyuki Yamamoto & Ryuichi Kitamura, 2002. "On the formulation of time-space prisms to model constraints on personal activity-travel engagement," Transportation, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 73-94, February.
    6. José Moore & Juan-Antonio Carrasco & Alejandro Tudela, 2013. "Exploring the links between personal networks, time use, and the spatial distribution of social contacts," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 773-788, July.
    7. Han Dong & Cinzia Cirillo & Marco Diana, 2018. "Activity involvement and time spent on computers for leisure: an econometric analysis on the American Time Use Survey dataset," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 429-449, March.
    8. Lin, Tao & Wang, Donggen, 2014. "Social networks and joint/solo activity–travel behavior," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 18-31.
    9. Tommy Gärling & Robert Gillholm & William Montgomery, 1999. "The role of anticipated time pressure in activity scheduling," Transportation, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 173-191, May.
    10. Manrai, Lalita A. & Manrai, Ajay K., 1995. "Effects of cultural-context, gender, and acculturation on perceptions of work versus social/leisure time usage," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 115-128, February.
    11. Tim Schwanen & Martin Dijst, 2003. "Time windows in workers' activity patterns: Empirical evidence from the Netherlands," Transportation, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 261-283, August.
    12. Eric J. Solberg & David C. Wong, 1992. "Family Time Use: Leisure, Home Production, Market Work, and Work Related Travel," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(3), pages 485-510.
    13. Alan Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & Claude Fischler & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur Stone, 2009. "Time Use and Subjective Well-Being in France and the U.S," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 7-18, August.
    14. I. Meloni & L. Guala & A. Loddo, 2004. "Time allocation to discretionary in-home, out-of-home activities and to trips," Transportation, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 69-96, February.
    15. DeSerpa, A C, 1971. "A Theory of the Economics of Time," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 81(324), pages 828-846, December.
    16. Toshiyuki Yamamoto & Ryuichi Kitamura, 1999. "An analysis of time allocation to in-home and out-of-home discretionary activities across working days and non- working days," Transportation, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 231-250, May.
    17. Kitamura, Ryuichi, 1984. "A model of daily time allocation to discretionary out-of-home activities and trips," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 255-266, June.
    18. Bhat, Chandra R. & Koppelman, Frank S., 1993. "A conceptual framework of individual activity program generation," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 433-446, November.
    19. Donggen Wang & Fion Law, 2007. "Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on time use and travel behavior: a structural equations analysis," Transportation, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 513-527, July.
    20. Nebiyou Tilahun & David Levinson, 2009. "Contacts and Meetings: Location, Duration and Distance Traveled," Working Papers 000070, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    21. Farber, Steven & Páez, Antonio, 2009. "My car, my friends, and me: a preliminary analysis of automobility and social activity participation," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 216-225.
    22. Erika Spissu & Abdul Pinjari & Chandra Bhat & Ram Pendyala & Kay Axhausen, 2009. "An analysis of weekly out-of-home discretionary activity participation and time-use behavior," Transportation, Springer, vol. 36(5), pages 483-510, September.
    23. Konstadinos Goulias, 2002. "Multilevel analysis of daily time use and time allocation to activity types accounting for complex covariance structures using correlated random effects," Transportation, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 31-48, February.
    24. John Gliebe & Frank Koppelman, 2002. "A model of joint activity participation between household members," Transportation, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 49-72, February.
    25. Dominique Anxo & Letizia Mencarini & Ariane Pailhe & Anne Solaz & Maria Letizia Tanturri & Lennart Flood, 2011. "Gender Differences in Time Use over the Life Course in France, Italy, Sweden, and the US," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 159-195.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Morris, Eric A. & Speroni, Samuel & Taylor, Brian D., 2023. "Going nowhere fast: Might changing activity patterns help explain falling travel?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.
    2. Lin, Tao & Wang, Donggen, 2015. "Tradeoffs between in- and out-of-residential neighborhood locations for discretionary activities and time use: do social contexts matter?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 119-127.
    3. Pinjari, Abdul Rawoof & Bhat, Chandra R. & Hensher, David A., 2009. "Residential self-selection effects in an activity time-use behavior model," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 729-748, August.
    4. Ettema, Dick & Bastin, Fabian & Polak, John & Ashiru, Olu, 2007. "Modelling the joint choice of activity timing and duration," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(9), pages 827-841, November.
    5. Wang, Donggen & Li, Jiukun, 2009. "A model of household time allocation taking into consideration of hiring domestic helpers," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 204-216, February.
    6. Marcela Munizaga & Sergio Jara-Díaz & Paulina Greeven & Chandra Bhat, 2008. "Econometric Calibration of the Joint Time Assignment--Mode Choice Model," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(2), pages 208-219, May.
    7. Marcela Munizaga & Sergio Jara-Díaz & Javiera Olguín & Jorge Rivera, 2011. "Generating twins to build weekly time use data from multiple single day OD surveys," Transportation, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 511-524, May.
    8. Pellegrini, Andrea & Pinjari, Abdul Rawoof & Maggi, Rico, 2021. "A multiple discrete continuous model of time use that accommodates non-additively separable utility functions along with time and monetary budget constraints," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 37-53.
    9. Bhat, Chandra R., 2005. "A multiple discrete-continuous extreme value model: formulation and application to discretionary time-use decisions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 39(8), pages 679-707, September.
    10. Dick Ettema & Olu Ashiru & John Polak & Fabian Bastin, 2005. "Taste Heterogeneity and Substitution Patterns in Models of the Simultaneous Choice of Activity Timing and Duration," ERSA conference papers ersa05p439, European Regional Science Association.
    11. Drago Bokal & Mitja Steinbacher, 2019. "Phases of psychologically optimal learning experience: task-based time allocation model," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 27(3), pages 863-885, September.
    12. Kuriyama, Koichi & Shoji, Yasushi & Tsuge, Takahiro, 2020. "The value of leisure time of weekends and long holidays: The multiple discrete–continuous extreme value (MDCEV) choice model with triple constraints," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C).
    13. Abdul Rawoof Pinjari & Chandra R. Bhat, 2011. "Activity-based Travel Demand Analysis," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Italo Meloni & Erika Spissu & Massimiliano Bez, 2007. "A Model of the Dynamic Process of Time Allocation to Discretionary Activities," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 41(1), pages 15-28, February.
    15. Ruiz, Tomás & Habib, Khandker Nurul, 2016. "Scheduling decision styles on leisure and social activities," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 304-317.
    16. Chandra Bhat & Konstadinos Goulias & Ram Pendyala & Rajesh Paleti & Raghuprasad Sidharthan & Laura Schmitt & Hsi-Hwa Hu, 2013. "A household-level activity pattern generation model with an application for Southern California," Transportation, Springer, vol. 40(5), pages 1063-1086, September.
    17. Wu, Guoqiang & Hong, Jinhyun, 2022. "An analysis of the role of residential location on the relationships between time spent online and non-mandatory activity-travel time use over time," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    18. Han Dong & Cinzia Cirillo & Marco Diana, 2018. "Activity involvement and time spent on computers for leisure: an econometric analysis on the American Time Use Survey dataset," Transportation, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 429-449, March.
    19. Hilke Brockmann & Anne-Maren Koch & Adele Diederich & Christofer Edling, 2018. "Why Managerial Women are Less Happy Than Managerial Men," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 755-779, March.
    20. Punyabeet Sarangi & M. Manoj, 2022. "Analysis of activity participation and time use decisions of partners: the context of low-and high-income households," Transportation, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 1017-1058, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:transp:v:47:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s11116-018-9924-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.