Jan 20 2015 : The Economic Times (Delhi)
This'll be a Time-Bound Survey of India!
Dilasha Seth
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New Delhi:
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Govt to conduct nationwide survey to find out how people spend their 24 hours
There's a statistic you might soon be able to fling at your children or, if you're one of our younger readers, at your parents! The government will soon be finding out how much time Indian children spend studying, data that could provide additional fodder for yet another argument about spending too much time on the InternetphoneTV .But the main focus of the all-India time-use survey being steered by the Central Statistics Office will be women, especially since most studies simply ignore the amount of work that goes into keeping a household running -cooking, cleaning, children's homework, ironing the husband's pants, none of which gets captured in the data. “Women do multi-tasking, involving varied activities, right from cooking, stitching, driving children to school, formal employment, but most of it does not get captured in the GDP,“ said economist SR Hashim, who chaired the committee that has identified close to 1,000 activities for the survey, including gambling, movie watching, preparing for a job interview, practising yoga, even enjoying a glass of vodka.
The idea is to find out how people in India spend their 24 hours to generate greater understanding of the quality of development. GDP is quantitative, measuring the value of goods and services produced.
The survey will be conducted by either the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) or an external agency . Social media will naturally form part of the questionnaire: How much time does a person spend on WhatsApp or Facebook in a day? Other answers may reveal gender differences and similarities: Do men spend as many hours shopping and on personal grooming as women? What about doing nothing — how many hours for that? “We have derived a list of questions based on the pilot conducted in two states -Gujarat and Bihar.
The sampling model is also ready,” said Hashim. “The survey will form the basis for many studies, highlighting various trends and busting several myths.” The granular nature of the survey is reflected in other activities identified -partying at a club, going to a restaurant, preparing for exams, moving house, looking for office place. Time-use statistics help explore a range of issues in a bid to arrive at an estimation of quality of life and social safety nets -division of labour, allocation of time for household, estimation of value of household production, transportation, leisure, recreation, pension plans, healthcare programmes. “Groundwork is complete. The survey agency will be appointed soon,” said a statistics ministry official. More than 60 countries have conducted at least one national or pilot time-use survey during between 1990 and 2008, according to a UN Statistics Division study.
While neighbouring Bhutan’s gross national happiness assessment seeks to measure quality of life, various models have been suggested on how this could be arrived at. To be sure, collecting data is one thing, making sense of it will be another. The India survey may also throw light on issues such as child labour. It will also seek to gauge the extent of other illegal activities such as gambling, prostitution and begging, with state-wise comparisons.
The idea is to find out how people in India spend their 24 hours to generate greater understanding of the quality of development. GDP is quantitative, measuring the value of goods and services produced.
The survey will be conducted by either the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) or an external agency . Social media will naturally form part of the questionnaire: How much time does a person spend on WhatsApp or Facebook in a day? Other answers may reveal gender differences and similarities: Do men spend as many hours shopping and on personal grooming as women? What about doing nothing — how many hours for that? “We have derived a list of questions based on the pilot conducted in two states -Gujarat and Bihar.
The sampling model is also ready,” said Hashim. “The survey will form the basis for many studies, highlighting various trends and busting several myths.” The granular nature of the survey is reflected in other activities identified -partying at a club, going to a restaurant, preparing for exams, moving house, looking for office place. Time-use statistics help explore a range of issues in a bid to arrive at an estimation of quality of life and social safety nets -division of labour, allocation of time for household, estimation of value of household production, transportation, leisure, recreation, pension plans, healthcare programmes. “Groundwork is complete. The survey agency will be appointed soon,” said a statistics ministry official. More than 60 countries have conducted at least one national or pilot time-use survey during between 1990 and 2008, according to a UN Statistics Division study.
While neighbouring Bhutan’s gross national happiness assessment seeks to measure quality of life, various models have been suggested on how this could be arrived at. To be sure, collecting data is one thing, making sense of it will be another. The India survey may also throw light on issues such as child labour. It will also seek to gauge the extent of other illegal activities such as gambling, prostitution and begging, with state-wise comparisons.
