Time-use among 13-year-olds
James Williams and Amanda Quail
www.growingup.ie
Introduction
 Focus in the literature on how children spend their time.
Children have too much time – Hofferth and Sandberg (2001);
the ‘Hurried Child’ (Elkind, 2006) or the ‘overscheduled’ child
hurrying from one activity to another (Lareau, 2003)
 How children spend their time may be associated with
physical, social, emotional and cognitive outcomes
 ‘screen-time’ and increased risk of overweight/obesity
(Barnett et al, 2009);
 TV/video time associated with attention problems &
aggressive behaviours (Ozmert et al, 2002) ;
 sleep and school performance (Taras & Potts-Datema,
2005)
Time-use Data in
Growing Up in Ireland
 Time-use data from 13-year-olds deposited in ISSDA on 25th
November
 Follows up comparable data from 9-year-olds, also in ISSDA
 First tentative look at how 13-year-olds spend their time - to
inform you that the data are available, and a little bit about
their potential
 Research Questions:
 How do 13-year-olds spend their time and does this vary
according to background characteristics?
 How has this changed since 9 years of age?
 Can we say anything about how time-use at 13 years of
age associated with socio-emotional outcomes?
Time-use diaries in
Growing Up in Ireland
 ‘Light’ Time-use Diaries (TUDs) used in:
 Child Cohort at 9 years; 13 years and 17 years (2015/’16)
 Infant Cohort at 9 years (2017)
 Diary left with family for self-completion and postal return –
96 15-minute slots
 Postal reminder sent to the family two weeks later
 74.8 % response at 9 years – 6,412 diaries returned from 8,568
9-year-olds
 66.8% response at 13 years – 5,023 diaries returned from 7,525
13-year-olds
 ‘Diary Day’ rotated throughout the week
 Both waves data reweighted to ensure representative of total
population
Light time-use diary
at 13 years of age
21 pre-coded time-use activities in diary
1. Sleeping/Resting
(incl. time trying to get to sleep,
trying to get up)
12. Playing Computer Games (e.g.
Playstation, PSP, X-box, Wii)
2. Personal Care or Getting Ready (showering,
washing, dressing, brushing teeth or hair, doing makeup,
getting changed or ready for school, for training, for going out
or for going to bed)
14. Music Lessons (or practicing music)
drama, classes etc.
15. Watching TV, Films, Videos, or DVDs
16. Listening to Music
17. Reading for Pleasure or Interest (not for
3. Eating (breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea)
4. Travelling
5. At School
(to or from school or elsewhere)
6. Doing Homework or Study
7. Just hanging around with friends
13. Talking on the Phone or Texting
school)
(outside or
inside)
8. Spending Time with Family
9. Playing with or Exercising a Pet
18. Housework (preparing food, tidying bedroom, feeding
pets)
19. Hobbies and Other Leisure Activities
20. On an Outing (e.g. To the beach, to the mountains,
to a shopping centre, to the theatre, to a match)
10. Playing Sport or Doing Physical Exercise 21. Out Shopping to Buy Things (groceries,
(training, matches)
11. Using the Internet/Emailing (including social
networking, browsing)
clothes etc.)
22. Other
The diary at 13 years of age
Weekday/Weekend –
In Term / Out-of-Term
 Clearly variations in activities between weekdays / weekends
and in-term / out-of-term
 Firstly consider school day vs other days
Percentage breakdown of time
among 13-year-olds
– School-day vs Other days
Percentage of time spent
Average time spent by 13-year-olds on
all activities, by gender – school-day only
 Similarly, little systematic variation in overall timeuse by Primary Caregiver’s education
Discretionary Time
 Focus on ‘discretionary’ time
 May reflect the Study Child’s individual choice to greater
degree than other aspects of time-use
 Discretionary time includes 8 of the 21 items listed in the TUD
11 of the time-use activities included in ‘Discretionary Time’
i. Just hanging around with friends (outside
or inside)
vii. Music Lessons (or practicing music)
drama, classes etc.
ii. Playing with or Exercising a Pet
viii. Watching TV, Films, Videos, or DVDs
iii. Playing Sport or Doing Physical Exercise
ix. Listening to Music
(training, matches)
iv. Using the Internet/Emailing (including social x. Reading for Pleasure or Interest (not for
networking, browsing)
school)
v. Playing Computer Games (e.g. Playstation, xi. Hobbies and Other Leisure Activities
PSP, X-box, Wii)
vi. Talking on the Phone or Texting
Average time spent by 13-yearolds on Discretionary Activities,
by gender
70
57
Average Minutes
60
50
40
45
37
57
42
38
31
26
30
28
29
21
20
15
11
13
12
10
14
13
10
10 10
7
6
0
Hanging
Around
Pets
Physical
Activities
Internet
Computer
Boy
Phone
Lessons etc. TV/video
Girl
Listening
music
Reading
Hobbies
Average time spent by 13-year-olds
on Discretionary Activities, Primary
Caregiver’s Education
Average time spent by 13-year-olds
on Discretionary Activities, Primary
Caregiver’s Education
Average time spent in all activities
– 9 and 13 years of age, by gender
Association with outcomes – a
preliminary examination
 Can we identify an association between time-use and child
outcomes? - neither causal nor directional
 Socio-emotional outcomes – Strengths and Difficulties
Questionnaire
 Four deficit focused subscales:
o emotional problems
o conduct problems
o hyperactivity/inattention
o peer relationship problems
 Internalising problems – emotional + peer
 Externalising subscale – conduct + hyperactivity/inattention
 Top 10% of children in “potentially problematic” range
Average time spent by 13-year-olds on
Discretionary Activities, with and without
INTERNALISING Problem
70
57
57
60
50
38
38
Average Minutes
40
33
35
30
29
30
23
19
19
16
17
20
17
14
12
12 12
9
10
10
10
5
0
Hanging
Around
Pets
Physical
Activities
Internet
Computer
Phone
SDQ Internalising Prob
Lessons
etc.
TV/video
Other Children
Listening
music
Reading
Hobbies
Average time spent by 13-year-olds on
Discretionary Activities, with and without
EXTERNALISING Problems
60
52
58
50
50
39
35
Average Minutes
40
35
32
36
28
28
30
21
16 17
17
20
13
13 12
11
8
10
12
10
10
0
Hanging
Around
Pets
Physical
Activities
Internet
Computer
Phone
SDQ Externalising Prob
Lessons
etc.
TV/video
Listening
music
Other Children
Reading
Hobbies
Odds ratios –problem range,
internalising and externalising
Hanging around with friends
Playing with/exercising a pet
Playing sport/physical exercise
Internet/emailing /social media)
Playing computer games
Talking or texting on the phone
Music practice, lessons /drama /classes
TV/Films/Videos/DVD
Listening to Music
Reading for pleasure
Hobbies or other leisure activities
Internalising
Adjusted
Unadjusted
0.977
0.818
0.835
0.873
0.452**
0.508**
0.956
0.948
1.309*
1.221
0.696**
0.686**
0.657**
0.775
0.873
0.895
0.904
0.785
1.224
1.112
0.980
0.947
Externalising
Adjusted
Unadjusted
1.513**
1.205
0.995
0.966
0.983
1.056
1.276*
1.220*
0.772*
0.946
0.991
0.998
0.619**
0.544**
0.839
0.803*
0.743**
0.753*
0.944
0.796
1.364*
1.259
1 Adjusted for child’s gender; child’s health; PCG education; changing family structure 9 to 13 years; family’s
difficulty in making ends meet; number of child’s friends; whether child was bullied; whether child bullied
Summary
 Light time-use diary data for 9 and 13 year cohorts
 13-year-old’s day largely structured by school
 27 per cent of time in school; 5 per cent doing homework – 35
per cent sleeping
 Little substantive variation at aggregate level between boys and
girls in the breakdown of their school day – similarly little variation
in terms of family advantage/disadvantage
 Focused on ‘discretionary time’ – greater degree of individual
choice
 Boys significantly more time spent on physical activity/sport and
on computer games
 Girls significantly more time on phone/texting, listening to music
and reading
Summary
 13-year-olds from educationally disadvantaged families more time
‘hanging around’; on the internet; on the phone/texting; and
listening to music. More time spent ‘reading’ by children in
educationally advantaged families
 Changes in 9 to 13-year time-use at aggregate level – reduction in
sleep and increase in school and homework time
 Some evidence to suggest internalising and externalising behavioural
problems associated with certain activities – on an unadjusted basis
and also controlling for child and family characteristics
FUTURE RESEARCH
 Relationship between 9-year timeuse and 13-year outcomes
 Changing activities 9 to 13 years – especially in discretionary time
Accessing the data
 Anonymised Microdata Files (AMF) available - including Time-use
data, from ISSDA – Irish Social Science Data Archive
http://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/growingupinireland/
 Documentation (including on time-use data) at this link.
Thank you
http://www.growingup.ie