Getting started with the Time Use Survey
1. Which dataset do I want?
The current Time Use Survey (2000)
is the first large-scale study of its kind to be conducted in this country.
The dataset is available from SN:4504.
Previous studies have taken place before, namely the ESRC-funded Time Use Survey
in 1987 (not currently available) and in 1995 OPCS (now the Office for National
Statistics) carried out an Omnibus 'simple' diary exercise (SN:3951).
2. Consulting the documentation
It will not be possible to analyse
the Time Use survey without reference to the documentation. Documentation is
available for viewing before downloading/ordering the data, however you will
also obtain the documentation if you download the data as a zipped file. The
documentation contains:
o information about how the survey
was carried out
o information about which variables are available
o information about how the data is coded
o the survey questionnaires
The survey questionnaires can also
be obtained on the Survey Question
Bank web site, which provides readily searchable versions of questionnaires
for all major surveys used by secondary analysts.
3. Registering for the data
Once you have decided which data to
use for your project you will need to register
with ESDS to obtain the data. Information about obtaining data can be found
on the ESDS web site.
Registered users can download/order a large and increasing number of datasets
direct from the web site (usually in SPSS, STATA or tab-delimited formats)
via its online catalogue record and via the download/order section of the Major
Studies web pages.
4. Downloading the data
Once registered you
may download the data directly as a zipped ASCII,
STATA or SPSS file. This download will also include necessary documentation.
5. Analysing the data using an appropriate
analysis package
Because the Time Use Survey datasets
are microdata you will need to analyse them using an appropriate package, to
do this you will need to use a package like SPSS, STATA or SAS.
If you are unfamiliar with these packages
you can find a STATA
guide on the ESDS Government pages, which uses examples from the Labour
Force Survey. A guide to SPSS is also available, based on the HSE 2002 teaching
dataset. Several organisations offer introductory SPSS and STATA courses. CCSR
at the University of Manchester offers one-day courses although there is a charge.
Details of these courses can be obtained through the CCSR
Short Course Pages.
6. Communicating with other users
and obtaining support
The ESDS-govsurveys
JISCmail list is an email list you can join to hear about events and other
news relating to the large-scale government list, including the Time Use Survey.
To join the list click on the above link to the ESDS-govsurveys list web page
or email listserv@jiscmail.ac.uk with the following message:
subscribe esds-govsurveys firstname
secondname
If you hit a problem with the data
while doing your work feel free to contact us. Queries relating to the large-scale
government datasets should be sent to:
govsurveys@esds.ac.uk
Alternatively you can telephone +44
(0)161 275 1980.
A list of Frequently Asked Questions for the Time Use Survey is also available.
7. Publishing
We need to let other researchers and
data depositors know what publications are available using the Time Use Survey.
If you publish using the data, please contact us at govsurveys@esds.ac.uk and
give us details of your publication. If you would be happy for us to publish
something on our web site, for example the research
story on smoking, please let us know.
Data collectors and distributors should
be acknowledged in publications.
