Australia’s gender equality depends on properly tracking how women spend their time

You’d be forgiven for not noticing the recent storm over data collection and gender. Authors writing in The Conversation claimed the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) was “gutting” the national time use survey (TUS), rendering it junk. The usually timid ABS took the extraordinary step of issuing a media statement clarifying “misconceptions” in the piece. The Conversation has remained quiet, updating the piece with a correction for one tiny aspect of the misrepresentations.

So what is the time use survey and why does it matter?

Tracking how individuals spend their days sounds like watching grass grow, but it’s a telling indicator of well-being.

Women do more unpaid work — housework, caring for children and volunteering — than men in Australia. This unpaid work is largely hidden and contributes to greater time poverty among women.

Taking stock of the time spent on both paid and unpaid work provides a broader indicator of economic contributions and helps advance principles of gender equity. 

Taking stock of time

Consider what you’re doing now. You might be caring for children or waiting for the laundry cycle to finish while reading this. Perhaps you’re commuting to work. 

How individuals spend their time matters for the nation’s bottom line and personal well-being.

Stocktakes of the way Australians spend time have been historically taken via the TUS, collected by the ABS over three time points — 1992, 1997 and 2006. It was killed off by the Labor government under Julia Gillard in order to achieve budget efficiencies. 

Crude census questions on unpaid work were considered substitutes for the loss of TUS. But the data proved the census wasn’t the place for quality and accurate time-use data, and these items have since been flagged for removal.

Other notable national surveys include questions to examine time use and health outcomes, such as the household, income and labour dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey and longitudinal study of Australian children (LSAC).

While these collect insightful time-use data, they don’t have the scope or gender lens focus of the TUS.

Women’s groups fought for over a decade for the TUS resource to be reinstated. The women’s economic security statement under the Malcolm Turnbull Liberal government re-established funding for the national survey. 

Then COVID-19 hit.

COVID-19 and the new world order

At the height of COVID-19 lockdowns and working from home, the TUS was fielded in 2020-21 after a 14-year hiatus. Collecting data during COVID-related health measures proved challenging for the ABS, but methodological insights and improved inclusivity emerged. 

COVID resulted in rapid changes to time use. Many workers were working from home, working reduced hours, or not working due to workplace closures. They were stuck at home, often in cramped conditions. The juggle was made even more stressful for parents as they navigated classroom zooms and one-on-one instruction for their children.   

Time-use data is invaluable for understanding the gendered impacts of the pandemic.

In the UK, the Office of National Statistics ramped up its COVID-era time use data collection with more frequent surveying, and the US survey of time use continued to be conducted annually. 

Time is money

Analysis of how we spend our days reveals insights into things like “domestically useless” teens who are an untapped resource that could help ease time poverty among mothers. The men of Australia could also step up.

Women in paid work come home and do a “second shift” undertaking the bulk of cooking, cleaning and caring. “Women are bringing home the bacon and frying it up too“. The stubbornness of gender inequality says a lot about policy failure. 

The highest priority of the reinvigorated TUS is to understand the full breadth of women’s economic activity. At the heart is unpaid caring — for children and adults. There will also be new questions on disability.

TUS is costly and tricky data to collect and analyse. It’s quite niche and requires an enormous time input from participants — imagine reporting your daily activities in 15-minute increments. Any improvements that can reduce burden and increase participation from the most time-poor Australians are welcomed. 

Generational change

The ABS fielded the same TUS questions in 2020-21 as they did in 2006, to enable comparisons across years. The TUS questions first developed in 1992 didn’t fit the world we found ourselves in. 

A generation of change occurred since the TUS questions were created. In the years to 2020-21, major technological change meant expectations of online surveying and a move away from paper forms. 

Participants of the TUS pushed back against the outdated survey, on the grounds that it was too burdensome and the wad of papers too impractical

Data was adversely impacted. 

Response rates were comparatively low for the 2020-21 TUS. The survey was too complex and had lost meaning, causing friction among those responding. Data was compromised in such a way that it cannot be released or reported on in the case of secondary activities. The core reasons for doing the survey — how people spend their time — were lost because respondents simply didn’t understand what they were being asked. For example, many failed to identify the common combination of working from home (primary activity) and providing care (secondary activity) because it wasn’t front of mind. Australians now juggle so many expectations that explicit prompts are needed to gauge the full use of time. 

The ABS has since worked to develop a strengthened TUS for contemporary Australia with a digital-first strategy and language changes to accommodate a Year 7 reading and comprehension level. Explicit prompting will be added to capture primary and secondary activities and annual data collection will help track progress against gender equality reporting.

Online collection of TUS means data will be published within months rather than well over a year, as it was with paper forms. The timeliness of gender equity data means it can inform policy and advocacy in near real-time for maximum benefit. 

The survey is ramping up, not being gutted, to build a more meaningful data collection for our time. As national efforts to make gender equality seem possible increase, the time is right to account for unpaid work more seriously in national economic statistics. Change in the TUS questions is necessary to facilitate this.

The ABS will hold the next TUS collection in July-September 2024. The ABS remains best placed to run the TUS because it’s able to require the participation of selected households, ensuring input from a diverse range of Australians. 

If we’re serious about gender equality, then we must get serious about the data that highlights the gaps in our progress. Annual tracking means we can better hold governments to account to make real change.

Misrepresentation about something as vital as the TUS data collection could result in the vital resource being lost to the nation, undermining gender equity.