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Workweek Estimate-Diary Differences and Regression to the Mean

Using data from the 2003-05 American Time Use Study (ATUS), we replicate earlier results suggesting that “stylized” questionnaire time estimates consistently overestimate the time employed men and women spend doing paid work. We employ data from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) to produce analogous results from six other Western countries. Drawing on diary studies from the UK, which contain a diary-type “work grid” (similar to the day diary but covering a continuous seven-day period), we find an asymmetry in the joint distributions of the two sorts of weekly work time measurement, with stylised questionnaire estimates more likely to exceed work grid-based estimates than vice versa. We then show that the “gap” between the diary or gride and estimate questions can be partly explained by the irregularity of the workweek (a phenomenon that cannot be directly observed in the US data), and the consequent difficulty that survey respondents face in answering stylized estimate questions. We conclude that differences between stylized estimate questions and diary-type measures of work time cannot be explained simply in terms of “regression to a mean”. Acknowledgement: Special appreciation is expressed to the US National Science Foundation for supporting the survey research that formed the basis for the present study, and to the UK Economic and Social Research Council which supported both the collection and the analysis of the work grid and diary data discussed here.