Local research staff met with rural women--often in their homes or place of work--to record their daily activities during a 24 hour period. How individuals spend their time varies significantly by gender, class, and caste in India.
Several focus groups were conducted with men and women in Vellore, India. The goal of these focus groups was to inquire about men and women's daily activities and understand how they describe these activities. Data collected from these focus groups informed the creation of gender-specific time use survey instruments that were then tested in the field.
The time use survey instrument was incredibly innovative, allowing researchers to capture data that was typically underreported or not reported. For example, women spend a significant portion of their day engaging in reproductive activities, but are likely to underreport these activities due to gender norms. By using a flexible survey instrument design, interviewers were able to write in responses and probe for further information during interviews thereby capturing this unique data.
GENDER and TIME USE in RURAL INDIA
Based in Vellore, India, the project team spent approximately two months in the field (between 2011 and 2012) developing and testing an innovative quantitative survey instrument to measure women and men's time use.
The team conducted approximately 20 focus groups with men and women to understand how individuals spend their time, how this varies by gender, and how they describe
various daily activities. Using this qualitative data, the survey instrument was then refined and tested during multiple rounds of field
interviews. Iterative, flexible development of the instrument was critical to obtaining the most accurate data and significantly decreasing the likelihood of interviewees
underreporting important daily activities.
An assessment of and findings from this process have resulted in a co-authored paper entitled “Using a Life History Calendar to Measure Gendered Patterns of Time Use in India", which is currently in preparation for publication.