Browsing by Subject "Time use"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Activity, Travel, and the Allocation of Time
    (American Planning Association, 1995) Levinson, David M
    This paper analyzes 1968 and 1987-88 metropolitan Washington, DC household travel surveys to understand the daily allocation of time among different activities of individuals classified by work status and gender. The increase in female labor force participation rates has produced an increase in overall time spent at work per person. The increase in work trips and the simultaneous increase in nonwork trips has resulted in less time spent at home. People are substituting money for time spent at home, buying household services outside the home. The group of individuals who work at home is analyzed separately to obtain an understanding of this growing segment.
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    Essays on divorce, marriage, time allocation and employment.
    (2012-08) Genadek, Katherine Rose
    This dissertation consists of three essays in the areas of labor economics and economic demography. The first essay builds on previous research, which has analyzed the economic impacts of divorce using various methods and outcomes, and from this research it is clear that divorce has economic consequences for women. One consequence of divorce that has not been explored is changes time allocation. Time allocation, specifically time spent in leisure, is directly related to the well-being of individuals, and it is expected to change with divorce when time-use gains from joint household production are no longer realized. The results show that divorced women spend more time in market work, and less time in housework than their married counterparts. Divorced women with children are found to have less leisure time than married women, and divorced women are found to spend the same amount of time in primary childcare yet significantly less time with children while doing other activities. The second essay is on the decision to enter the labor force for women with children. This decision is based on a variety of factors that includes characteristics of spouses. Husband's work schedules, work hours, and flexibility of work time will play an important role in this decision to enter the labor force, and additionally, in the decision to work part-time or a set number of hours. This paper uses detailed time-dairy and work schedules data to investigate the relationship between husband's work schedules and maternal employment. The results show married women with children are less likely to participate in the labor force when their husbands finish work after 6:00pm when compared to husbands that finish work before 6:00pm, even while controlling for simultaneous relationship between husband's work stopping time and wife's labor force participation. Finally, the third essay of this dissertation analyzes the effect of state-level changes in divorce law on the time allocation of married men and women. The results show that married men's time allocation is not impacted by the change in divorce law, yet women are found to be spending more time in leisure and less time in household production in states with unilateral divorce law.
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    Essays on teacher labor markets
    (2012-11) West, Kristine Lamm
    This dissertation is comprised of three essays related to teacher labor markets. The first essay describes a theoretical model which incorporates an oft overlooked fact of educational production, namely the fact that teachers are asymmetrically well informed about what actions are best for their specific classes. The model shows that to take advantage of teachers' local knowledge, districts should offer contracts with output-based pay for performance coupled with decentralized decision making and support for teachers to help them set locally appropriate goals. I use data from Minnesota's Q-Comp program to empirically test the model. The data, however, do not confirm (or reject) the theory. The second essay investigates the impact of collective bargaining on teacher contracts using the 2003-04 and 2007-08 Schools and Staffng Survey (SASS) and data from a survey that I administered. Contracts negotiated via collective bargaining have greater returns to experience than do districts without collective bargaining. Unions do not appear to be a roadblock to basing compensation on student performance but they do oppose basing compensation on administrator review and basing tenure on student performance. The third essay turns to an analysis of average hourly wages. Using the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I compare teachers' wages to demographically similar workers in other occupations. First I estimate that teachers work an average of 34.5 hours per week annually. Using the ATUS data, I conclude that high school teachers earn approximately 11% less than full time college educated workers in other occupations; but elementary, middle and special education teachers are not underpaid relative to full time college educated workers in other occupations.
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    Time in the “Great Recession”: the impact of the Great recession and being unemployed on time spent in healthy behaviors and with family members.
    (2012-08) Hill, Rachelle F.
    The "Great Recession" gripped the global economy beginning in December of 2007 and though the National Bureau of Economic Research (2010) determined that it concluded in June of 2009, for many people across the United States it has not yet receded as of July of 2012. In this study, I examine the impacts of both the overall employment insecurity accompanying the Great Recession and actual job loss on daily time use. Specifically, I examine the effects of being unemployed, living in states with poor economic conditions, and being interviewed during the Great Recession on 1) time spent with family members, 2) time spent sleeping, and 3) time spent engaging in healthy behaviors in order to gain a greater understanding of the effects of employment uncertainty on the lives of US Population. Drawing on the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I use multivariate statistical models to examine differences in time spent sleeping, in healthy behaviors, and with family members for a subsample of respondents in the United States between the ages of 23 and 55. I find that employment uncertainty is related to poor sleep outcomes while also being related to greater time spent in healthy behaviors and time with family members. Respondents who are unemployed sleep longer and are more likely to report sleeplessness than the employed; living in states with poor economic conditions (i.e. higher unemployment rates) is related to lower odds of having a sleepless episode but increases the odds of a sleep disruption; and those interviewed during the recession are more likely to sleep more than 9 hours, report sleeplessness, and less likely to report a sleep disruption, compared to respondents who were interviewed before the recession began. Being unemployed is related to exercise, active travel, health-related self-care, and eating breakfast, whereas state economic conditions and historical time period are not as consistently related to healthy behaviors. Poor state economic conditions were related to increased likelihood of spending time in health-related self-care, while being interviewed during the years marked by the recession was related to spending more time in active travel and increased odds of eating breakfast. In regards to family time, being unemployed and living in a state with worse economic conditions (as captured by higher unemployment rates) are related to greater odds of spending time with family members as well as more time spent on average while the recession is related to more time spent with immediate family and less time with extended family members. Though being unemployed, living in states with poor economic conditions, and being interviewed during the Great Recession do not moderate one another in each instance, I find that being unemployed is moderated by other indicators of employment insecurity. In the sleeplessness models becoming unemployed in the 2 to 5 months prior to participating in the ATUS and being interviewed during the recessionary years of 2008 and 2009 were related to lower probabilities of reporting sleeplessness than the employed before the recession. In addition, the declining probability of reporting sleeplessness with increasing state unemployment rates had a smaller slope in 2009 than before the recession. In the health models the long-term unemployed in states with high unemployment tend to spend more time in active travel than the long-term unemployed in low unemployment states and the recently unemployed interviewed during the recessionary years have greater probability of eating breakfast than the employed interviewed before the recession. In contrast, the recently unemployed spend less time in active travel in high unemployment states compared to low unemployment states. In the family models I find that unemployed parents spend more time with children under 6 when they are living in states with high unemployment rates and are interviewed during the recessionary years. The recently unemployed spend less time with extended family members if they are interviewed during the recession while the longer-term unemployed spend more time with their parents if they were interviewed during this same period. In addition, socio-demographic characteristics - particularly gender - are important moderators of how employment insecurity is related to time sleeping, in healthy behaviors, and with family members. Unemployed men experienced more sleeplessness as did men living in states with higher unemployment rates. Unemployed men during the recession spent more time in active travel but spent less time in active travel when living in states with high unemployment rates. Men were less likely to eat breakfast when unemployed and spent less time in health-related self care when living in states with high unemployment rates. Unemployed women spend more time with children and extended family members. Life stage also moderates the relationship between the employment uncertainty and sleep outcomes and healthy behaviors. In particular, older respondents without children and parents spend more time in sleeplessness when living in states with higher state unemployment rates than do the younger respondents without children. Parents of children under 18 also spend less time in exercise and are less likely to eat breakfast during the recession. The employment status of spouses/partners moderates the relationships between employment uncertainty and healthy behaviors and time with family members. Those with employed spouses or partners spend more time in active travel in higher unemployment rate states, while those with spouses or partners who are not employed spend less time in active travel. The long-term unemployed with an employed spouse or partner spend more time with children under 6 and their own parents. Lastly, education moderates the relationships between employment uncertainty and time with family members. During the recession, those with lower levels of education spend more time with parents. In addition, the long-term unemployed with lower levels of education spend more time with extended family members.