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Measuring Housework Participation: The Gap between “Stylised” Questionnaire Estimates and Diary-based Estimates

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Abstract

This article compares stylised (questionnaire-based) estimates and diary-based estimates of housework time collected from the same respondents. Data come from the Home On-line Study (1999–2001), a British national household survey that contains both types of estimates (sample size = 632 men and 666 women). It shows that the gap between the two types of estimate is generally smaller in the case of women. But the gap between the estimates in the case of women is associated with the amount of housework performed as secondary activities and the level of irregularity in housework hours. Presence of dependent children, on the other hand, inflates the gap for both men and women. Men holding traditional gender-role attitudes tend to report more housework time in surveys than in diaries, but the tendency is reversed when they undertake long hours of housework. The overall results suggest that there are systematic errors in stylised housework time estimates.

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Notes

  1. Juster, Ono, and Stafford however held a different view. In the case of paid work time, they found that the two types of estimates correspond with each other closely for individuals who work regularly. When assessing historical trends, they reported that the two estimates correspond closely, but some time-diary estimates deviate from the trend even when the sample and the codes are standardized. See Juster et al. (2003, Fig. 1a–d).

  2. The terms “over-report” and “under-report” are adopted from Bonke (2005). To be exact, we should note these are based on the assumption that the diary estimates are more accurate than the stylised ones.

  3. Kan and Pudney (2007) treated the stylised and the diary-based estimates of housework time as the dependent variables in two separate equations, and modeled them by “seemingly unrelated regressions” (Zellner 1962). The results show that the diary estimates contain less measurement error variances than the stylised estimates.

  4. Descriptive statistics and correlations of variables for the multivariate regressions are given in Appendix II.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Manor Road, Oxford, Oxfordshire, OX1 3UQ, UK

    Man Yee Kan

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Correspondence to Man Yee Kan.

Appendices

Appendix I

The following four items are used to measure gender role attitudes:

  1. (a)

    Both the husband and wife should contribute to the household income;

  2. (b)

    Having a full-time job is the best way for a woman to be an independent person;

  3. (c)

    A husband’s job is to earn money; a wife’s job is to look after the home and family.

  4. (d)

    A pre-school child is likely to suffer if his or her mother works.

In the Home On-line Study, respondents were asked to indicate if they strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree or strongly disagree with each of the statements. Responses to the above statements are recoded and then added up to create a score ranging from 0 to 16, where higher values indicate more traditional attitudes and 8 is neutral. There are about 20% of cases with missing values. For these cases, the values are imputed based on education, age and gender.

Appendix II

Correlations and descriptive statistics for all variables

Variables

1

2

3

4

5

6

1. Male partners

1. Stylised housework hours

–

     

2. Primary housework hours from diary

0.46***

–

    

3. Secondary housework hours from diary

0.00

0.01

–

   

4. Coefficient of variation

0.14***

0.22***

−0.05

–

  

5. Having a dependent child (Yes = 1; No = 0)

0.05

−0.05

−0.05

0.06

–

 

6. Traditional gender attitudes (Yes = 1; No = 0)

0.01

−0.02

−0.03

−0.02

−0.17***

–

M

6.47

4.50

0.94

0.50

0.38

0.45

SD

7.43

4.82

2.43

0.48

–

–

2. Female partners

1. Stylised housework hours

–

     

2. Primary housework hours from diary

0.45***

–

    

3. Secondary housework hours from diary

0.12**

0.01

–

   

4. Coefficient of variation

−0.29***

−0.52***

−0.06

–

  

5. Having a dependent child (Yes = 1; No = 0)

0.09*

−0.05

0.04

−0.02

–

 

6. Traditional gender attitudes (Yes = 1; No = 0)

−0.02

0.03

0.04

−0.01

−0.15***

–

M

16.12

15.33

1.28

0.55

0.44

0.45

SD

10.57

8.74

2.82

0.33

–

–

  1. Note: Data from the Home On Line Study, 1999–2001. N = 632 for the male partners’ model; N = 666 for the female partners’ model
  2. * p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001

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Kan, M.Y. Measuring Housework Participation: The Gap between “Stylised” Questionnaire Estimates and Diary-based Estimates. Soc Indic Res 86, 381–400 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-007-9184-5

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