What you should know

The Survey on the Use of Time 2023-2024 (EUT 2023-2024) is an official statistical activity integrated in the Annual Programme for Statistical Action (action 04 06 01), which implements the Law on the Statistical Plan of Catalonia 2017-2020, approved by Law 5/2016, of 23 December (currently extended for the year 2023). It aims to measure how much time the population spends on daily activities (in hours and minutes) and at what time of the day they do each activity.

Two editions of the survey have been carried out in Catalonia in the past: 2002-2003 and 2010-2011.

Although the Survey on the Use of Time 2023-2024 is based on the methodology of the two previous editions, it also incorporates some of the recommendations of the Eurostat guide "Harmonised European Survey on the Use of Times HETUS. 2018 Guidelines. 2020 Edition" (November 2020). This guide contains common variables (with basic definitions) and recommendations on questionnaires, diary formats, data collection procedures and the coding list of common activities (ACL2018). This aims to ensure a high level of data quality, comparability across countries and compliance with the principles of the European Statistics Code of Practice (2017 edition).

2. What are the objectives of the survey?

The Survey on the Use of Time aims to provide information on the following aspects:

• Gender equality, in particular the relationship between the division of labour to the household and the increase of women's participation in the world of work; the reconciliation of the demands of paid work and family life; and the care of children, dependants and the chronically ill, among others.
• The flows and activities necessary to estimate the satellite accounts of the household sector (and, therefore, of non-remunerated work), within the framework of the new methodological developments of the National Accounts (value of the production of services for own use such as childcare, cleaning of the home, etc.).
• Working time, in order to obtain more reliable and higher quality data on actual working hours associated with teleworking, or because of the flexibility and individualisation of working hours, which are becoming more and more common.
• The extent of non-market work and its integration into daily life (including, for example, time spent on childcare, where appropriate).
• The purpose of commuting and the means of transport used, to be able to design public policies related to passenger transport and tourism.
• Cultural and leisure activities, in order to obtain information on citizens' behaviour in this area, in line with the more traditional orientation of this survey.

3. Who will be asked for this information?

The target population is the set of private households residing in main family dwellings in Catalonia and the persons who are members. In this sense, members aged 10 years and over are studied in more detail.

4. What is the source of the sample of respondents?

The source of the sample comes from the Population Register of Catalonia as of 1 April 2023, which is an administrative register containing the compulsory updated data of the residents registered in the municipal population registers of all the town councils in Catalonia. In order to extract the statistical sample by dwellings, the Register has been computer processed to transform it from a file of persons to a file of dwellings. This Register is kept by Idescat and is regulated by the Statistical Law of Catalonia (External link: opens in a new window).

5. How is the interviewed dwelling selected?

The type of sampling for the Survey on the Use of Time 2023-2024 is a two-stage stratified sampling.

The first stage units are census tracts, which are selected with probabilities proportional to size, while the second stage units, which are dwellings, are selected by simple random sampling of 8 dwellings per census tract.

If there is more than one resident household in the dwelling, the household that matches the name of the reference person or, if the name does not match, the household with more members is investigated. Only persons aged 10 years and over are asked to fill in the individual questionnaire and the activity diary.

6. Is the information being asked confidential?

The individual information on the survey is protected by statistical secret under the terms set forth in the Statistical Law of Catalonia and also, by the legislation on personal data protection. This means that the individualised data contained on the questionnaires may not be made public or disclosed to any person or entity, not even public administration, except for any person or entity that is also bound by obligations to respect statistical secret, and they must be treated with the security measures that guarantee their confidentiality. In this regard, all the personnel of Idescat and other organisations participating in official statistics in Catalonia must take a solemn oath to preserve the confidentiality of this information, and the liability provisions established by law in the event of non-compliance applies to them.

Likewise, the obligation for statistical secret is also extended to the publication of the results, meaning that both Idescat and the other organisations forming part of the Statistical System of Catalonia must take special care to ensure that individual information cannot be deduced from the tabulated information that is published.

7. Is it compulsory to respond to the survey?

Given the public interest, established by the Parliament of Catalonia, of all the the statistics included in the Statistical Plan of Catalonia, cooperation by both citizens and companies in responding to questionnaires is legally binding to ensure an appropriate number of responses and, in consequence, reliable statistical results (chapter 5 of the Statistical Law of Catalonia).

This is expressed in article 38 of the mentioned law: "All citizens, entities and institutions are obliged by law to provide the information requested, and this information must be complete and truthful".

8. How is the survey conducted?

The survey is conducted using any of the three questionnaire modalities: online, telephone interview or face-to-face interview. The respondent household chooses which of the three modalities it wants to use.

The surveyed households, in order to be able to update the contact data and the data of the persons who live there, have to use the user name, and password that is included in the survey's letter of introduction that they have previously received by ordinary mail. Approximately one week after receiving this letter, they receive a first telephone or face-to-face contact from the duly accredited survey personnel, in which they are given a detailed explanation of the characteristics of the survey and access to the different questionnaires that comprise it: household questionnaire, individual questionnaire and activity diary. The latter is a list of the different activities carried out during the assigned date of completion, which is included in the survey's letter of introduction.

9. When is the fieldwork performed?

The fieldwork is carried out for almost one year, from 20 November 2023 to 17 November 2024, and information is obtained every day of the week (from Monday to Sunday, both included).

10. Where can I get further information?

During the fieldwork period, a telephone number and email address are provided to deal with any queries which arise.

• Telephone: 900 055 130 (Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 21:30, and Saturdays from 10:00 to 14:00).
• Email: usdeltemps at idescat dot cat

11. Where can I find the results of the Survey?

You can find the results of these statistics in the Survey on the Use of Time section of the Idescat website.