On Apr 20, 2007, at 3:17 PM, Gar Lipow wrote:
> On 4/20/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>> This is based on time-diaries, not self-reports:
>
> Well a time diary is a form of self-reporting, but that is semantics.
> More to the point I doubt time diaries are filled out as the work is
> done. I filled out an arbitron diary once, and I did not track my
> listening as it happened, but reconstructed from memory they day
> before mailing it. Anecdotal, but I wonder if diaries really differ
> significantly from other forms of self-reporting.
The paper addresses that:
> No matter how extensive a set of codes is, each survey will have a
> different way of coding and aggregating what might seem like the
> same activity to an observer. Time diaries have the virtue of
> forcing respondents to provide a time allocation that adds to 24
> hours in a day. Also, unlike retrospective data about last week's
> or even last year's time spent working, while the time-diary
> information is necessarily based on recall, the recall period is
> only one day. The shorter recall period and the implicit time-
> budget constraint suggest that information on market work from time
> diaries is likely to be more reliable than the recall data on time
> use from standard household surveys; and, of course, time diaries
> provide information on non-market activities that is unavailable
> from labor-force surveys.