1. The Multinational Time Use Studies (MTUS) Project A poster presentation for: Work Time and Leisure Time: Dynamics and Convergence in Changing Contexts IATUR meeting 15-18 October 2002, Lisbon Dr. Kimberly Fisher and Professor Jonathan I. Gershuny, Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) Professor Anne H. Gauthier, Department of Sociology, University of Calgary What is MTUS? Researchers have used time diary methods for analyzing people’s behaviour since the mid-1920s in many countries. During these early efforts, a spirit of co-operation developed among people performing time use research. This spirit of cross- national and cross-institutional co-operation in the production of time use data as well as the development of many time use data and information archives inspired the development of the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS). In the late 1980s, Jonathan Gershuny and Sally Jones, then at the School of Social Sciences at the University of Bath, collected time use data sets performed in 20 countries and prepared a version of these data sets which would allow cross-national comparability. The multinational file has in the past limited the age range and the detail of demographic variables to allow for maximum comparability of the files. The upcoming versions building on this original base will include more variables and the complete age ranges collected in the various studies. From the summer of 1998, time use researchers from the University of Melbourne in Australia, the University of Essex in the UK, and two Canadian universities, St. Mary's and The University of Calgary, have collaborated to expand and improve the MTUS. Team members at Calgary have rechecked the original syntax used to convert the original data into earlier versions of the MTUS. The Essex team has assembled a document of the technical details of time use studies, acquired recent documentation of time use studies and scanned older documentation for distribution, and constructed the project’s website. The Melbourne and St. Mary's teams have joined the Essex team in designing and coordinating the project, as well as in acquiring new data sets for inclusion in the file. _______________________ The structure of the MTUS files for each survey are as follows: WORLD 5.0 – Covers the original MTUS variables and covers the age range common to all the studies, ages 20-59. WORLD 5.1 – Covers the same variables in the World 5.0 series, but covers the full age range included in each of the original studies. WORLD 5.5 – Covers the full age range included in each of the original studies but includes extra variables in addition to the original MTUS variables. Syntax file – Shows how the data from the original studies was converted into the MTUS data series 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5. ________________________ What are the current activities of MTUS? The MTUS team has created and included several new variables in the World 5.5 series of datasets that allow for an enhanced level of analysis and information to be extracted from the original data files of the surveys in the archive. The first release of the MTUS User’s Guide is set for Fall, 2002 and will include the complete documentation of all the MTUS variables in 25 of the over 50 surveys in the archive. Accompanying the release of the User’s Guide, the release of the newly checked and cleaned datasets from the 25 surveys will be available to registered users of MTUS. What are the future plans of MTUS? The next versions of the MTUS will include more countries, more demographic detail, sequence data, and more ancillary characteristics associated with activities in time. The MTUS team is also working with a larger team, including the UK Data Archive, Statistics Sweden and Statistics Finland, to develop prototype data tables, a customized time use table production web site, and a harmonized data file for the Harmonized European Time Use Study (HETUS) project. Where can I find MTUS? http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/mtus/index.php Who has access to MTUS? Some data may be accessed by any interested user. Other data may only be accessed by authorized academic users. Any researcher wishing to use the MTUS data should complete the general registration form and apply to the original data producers for permission to use the restricted data sets. The MTUS is a collaborative project, and as a condition for receiving the data for free, all registered users undertake to give back to the project any improved or enhanced data files as well as the citations of publications they produce using the MTUS data. Also, all registered users must agree not to divulge any MTUS data to a third party. Each researcher proposing to use any element of data connected with the MTUS needs to apply separately for permission to use the data. Research assistants are covered by agreements signed by lead researchers. The main MTUS data file includes aggregated data. There are two levels of aggregate data available: Class A aggregated microdata covers unrestricted information that may be distributed to all registered users of the study, provided they acknowledge the original data sources in publications and abide by other conditions of registering as an MTUS user. Class B aggregated microdata requires the registered user to sign an additional agreement with the original data provider. You will need to complete separate forms with each provider, and may be asked to destroy the data after a set period. In many cases, the MTUS coordinators also have the original episode data files on which the MTUS aggregated file is based. At this time, researchers can gain access to any Class A country episode file for data collected in the 1980s or earlier by submitting a separate request. Permission to use more recent Class A sequence files may require permission from the data depositor. Permission to use sequence data from a Class B country should be requested from the data producer directly. Who created MTUS? Professor Jonathan I. Gershuny (UK) Professor Anne H. Gauthier (Canada) Michael Bittman (Australia) Anita Bortnik (Canada) Cara Fedick (Canada) Dr. Kimberly Fisher (UK) Professor Andrew Harvey (Canada) Professor Duncan Ironmonger (Australia) Sally Jones (UK) Fiona Lui (Canada) Tingting Lu (Canada) Leslie MacRae (Canada) Monica Pauls (Canada) Faye Soupourmas (Australia) Dr. Oriel Sullivan (Israel) Charlemaigne Victorino (Canada) Poster design by Cara Fedick with information taken from the MTUS website at http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/mtus/index.php The following countries and survey years are currently included in the archive (* denotes survey has been fully documented and contains World 5.0, World 5.1 and World 5.5 files): Australia1974, 1987, 1992*, 1997Italy1980, 1989* Austria1992*Netherlands1975*, 1980*, 1985*, 1990*, 1995* Belgium1965Norway1971, 1980, 1990* Bulgaria1965, 1988Peru1966 Canada1971*, 1981*, 1986*, 1992*, 1998*Poland1965 Czechoslovakia1965South Africa2000 Denmark1964, 1987Sweden1991* East Germany1964UK1961, 1975*, 1985*, 1995*, 2000 Finland1979, 1987*USA1965*, 1975*, 1985*, 1992*, 1998* France1966, 1974USSR1965 Germany1992*West Germany1965, 1992 Hungary1965, 1976, 1986, 1999Yugoslavia1965 Israel1990 NOTE: The survey years above correspond to the value of the variable SURVEY. Some surveys may have spanned more than the year indicated.