American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age 1
Research Paper
American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age
Sunitha Konatham
Huy Long Nguyen
Eduardo Gonzales
Khurtsbayar
Stratford University
Faculty Advisor
Melissa Smith
Submitted in Assignment of
Research Methods
October 05, 2013
American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age 2
Contents
I. 1 Introducon: 3
II. 2 Literature review 5
1. 2.1 Contextual review: 5
2. 2.2 Historical review: trace the development of the event over me 6
3. 2.3 Methodological review: compare how di#erent theories address this event. 6
4. 2.4 Conclusion: 7
III. 3 Research methodologies 8
5. 3.1 Restatement of research problem 8
6. 3.2 Research Method 8
7. 3.3 Research Design 8
8. 3.4 Source of Data 9
9. 3.5 Survey Se-ng 9
10. 3.6 Survey sampling and populaon 10
11. 3.7 Variables 10
12. 3.8 Limitaon 11
IV. 4 Analysis and Interpretaon 11
13. 4.1 Primary Acvies or Daily Acvies: 11
14. 4.2 2012 Average Hours per Day Spending In Primary Acvies as Per Age Groups: 13
15. 4.3 Time Spent Working by Class of Worker and Occupaon: 15
16. 4.4 Employed Persons Working and Time Spent By Full- And Part– Time Status, Educaonal
A<ainment: 16
V. 5 Conclusion 16
VI. 6 References 17
VII. 7 Appendix 19
Huy L Nguyen, Sunitha.K, Eduardo.G, Khurtsbayar .R Stratford
University
American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age 3
1 Introduction:
Time is a “Measurement” and it’s important because it helps us “Organize” and “Manage”
our lives in relation to everyone and everything around us. Americans’ time use changes
dramatically through agriculture, industrialization and information technology era. Agriculture
was the critical factor in the emergence of new communities that were more connected and
resulting different social conventions integrated multiple rhythms into a unitary vision of Time
(Christian, D, 2011). Due to the repetitiousness of work and the congregating of urban
expansion created a need to have leisure time in the industrial worker life.
Developments in science, Technology and economic fields had a tremendous impact on the way
people spend their time at work, leisure and education. Time use dramatically varies across the
different age groups due to the several factors such as employment and marital status.
Problem Statement:
Different age groups have different priorities/preferences regarding time use for daily
activities related to the work, education and leisure. In this paper we are attempting to analyze
the American people time-use in relation to the age.
Purpose and importance of study:
This analysis will help us to understand how recent technology revolutions such as smart
phones, satellite TV has impact on American people time related to work, leisure & education.
The results of this study can be used by advertisers, employers and business community to fine-
tune their polices related to the work life balance and marketing strategies.
Huy L Nguyen, Sunitha.K, Eduardo.G, Khurtsbayar .R Stratford
University
American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age 4
The Questions:
We have divided this main problem into three sub problems for easy of analysis based on
time used for working, education and leisure.
Sub-question 1: Age and employment status has impact on the time use. In this analysis,
we are investigating, how age affects the amount of time people spend on working?
Sub-question 2: Education plays critical role in people life from economic prosperity and
career advancement perspective. We will analyze how each age group spends their time
on the education related activities.
Sub-question 3: Leisure activities plays very critical role in recharging and rejuvenating
individual’s physical and mental abilities. We will analyze, how different age groups
spend their on leisure activities
Scope of study:
In this study we are analyzing the American time use in general irrespective of genders,
ethnic groups. Our study is based on the data collected from bureau of labor statistic as part of
the American time use in the year 2012.
Definition of terms:
Personal care activities – Sleeping and eating are defined as the personal care activities
Educational activities – Attending classes, homework and research are considered as
considered as educational activities.
Leisure – Socializing and communicating, Watching television, Participating in sports,
exercise and recreation, Telephone calls, mail, and e-mail related activities as classified as
leisure time
Huy L Nguyen, Sunitha.K, Eduardo.G, Khurtsbayar .R Stratford
University
American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age 5
Work time – Time spent in office related activities at the office as well as at home are
considered as work time.
2 Literature review
The literature review will investigate general trends and common issues addressed in
other literatures about time-use in relation to ages, and work with leisure balance. However, the
review is limited to investigation of people who live in United States and covered only the main
highlights in these relations.
2.1 Contextual review:
Many articles are written about reflect time, and others about theorize and/or measure it.
Most authors of empirical studies consider the time that has elapsed from the start to the end of a
phenomenon that they are studying. This is especially true in longitudinal studies. Some
researchers measure time explicitly, such as in terms of the minutes it takes to complete an online
search task; a few build mathematical models and include time as a variable; several focus on
stages that occur over time. Still others use questionnaire measures that either try to capture an
aspect of time (i.e., frequency of use in a time period, perceptions about how quickly time is
passing) or capture time as an aspect of another construct (i.e., overload in which a person has
too many things to do at a given point in time or efficiency in which performance is gauged with
respect to a unit of time). Of the 103 articles published from 2005–2007, there have been 38 with
measures that reflect aspects of time. (Saunders.2007)
Huy L Nguyen, Sunitha.K, Eduardo.G, Khurtsbayar .R Stratford
University
American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age 6
2.2 Historical review: trace the development of the event over time
It seems that there is a number of researches on correlation between time-use and well-
being and time-use with their family members. Understanding how Americans spend their time
and how their time use changes is important because it affects their well-being. Unfortunately
little attention has been devoted to how Americans spend their time. How we spend our leisure
time has major consequences for health. Appropriate exercise, eating, work and sleep patterns all
contribute to well-being. Diary data show us some new and surprising results. For example,
doctors and teachers are substantially under-represented among those taking the most physical
exercise, over–represented among those taking the least. (Rachel and Jay)
2.3 Methodological review: compare how different theories address this event.
Bryant and Zick (1996) examined time spent by married parents in primary childcare
activities, comparing time spent per child in the 1920’s and 1930’s with the late 1970’s and early
1980’s. They found that time spent per child increased over time, an effect due mostly to
decreasing family size, spending more time caring for children over one year old, and increasing
educational levels. Little time, in either time period, was spent in primary care of teenagers.
Interestingly, fathers with non-employed wives spent more time in childcare activities than those
with employed wives. (David J. Harding.1997)
Regarding leisure time, study examined to investigate age differences in time use and
affective experience in TV use in a nationally representative sample by using an innovative
assessment of affective experience in a nationally representative sample, several putative reasons
were examined for age-related increases in TV use. A sample of 3982 Americans aged 15–98
years who were assessed using a variant of the Day Reconstruction Method, a survey method for
Huy L Nguyen, Sunitha.K, Eduardo.G, Khurtsbayar .R Stratford
University
American’s Time Use Regarding Their Age 7
measuring how people experience their lives, was analyzed. To understand age increases in TV
use, analyses examined whether older people (1) enjoy TV more; (2) watch TV because it is less
stressful than alternatives; or whether (3) TV use was related to age differences in demographics,
being alone, or life satisfaction. Data were collected in 2006 and analyzed in 2008–2009. The
result was adults aged >65 years spent threefold more waking time watching TV than young
adults. Despite this trend, older people enjoyed TV less, in contrast to stable enjoyment with
other leisure activities. Older adults did not seem to experience the same stress-buffering effects
of watching TV as did young and middle-aged adults. This negative age-associated trend in how
TV was experienced was not accounted for by demographic factors or in time spent alone.
