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UNIFEM
Asia-Pacific
and Arab States Regional Programme for Engendering Economic Governance demystifying economics and empowering women |
|
UNIFEM
Asia-Pacific
and Arab States Regional Programme for Engendering Economic Governance demystifying economics and empowering women |
Summary
This seminar presented the results of the Indian Time Use survey to key Indian policy makers and lobbied for their support for future use of time use. UNIFEM funded the seminar, which was jointly organized by UNIFEM New Delhi Office, the Central Statistical Organization and the Centre for Development.
In addition to those from India, a small group also attended from Nepal which had incorporated a time use module into their 1999 labour force survey. One woman attended from Sri Lanka. The international experts attending were Dr. Lorraine Corner the UNIFEM Regional Economic Advisor, Prof Andrew Harvey from Canada, and Eivind Hoffman from the ILO Bureau of Statistics.
Reflecting the target audience, the meeting was opened by the Minister and chaired by the most senior offices in the two major statistical organizations – the Central Statistical Organization (CSO), which conducted the Time Use Survey and the National Statistics and Survey Organization (NSSO).
The seminar focused on the valuation of women’s unpaid work in the economy. The seminar builds on UNIFEM efforts in South Asia over the last decade to support interventions promoting the visibility of women's work. Time Use Surveys are increasingly important for measuring the amount of time spent by men and women in paid and unpaid work and the valuation of paid and unpaid work.
The Seminar featured eight technical sessions, and with experts from Canada, India and Nepal, the seminar shared the Indian experience of using time use surveys. It compared the results of the Indian Time Use Survey with those from the Census and National Sample Survey in order to assess critically the advantages of time use data. The Seminar facilitated the sharing of regional and global experiences in using time use data for policy analysis and advocacy, examined the policy implications of the results for integrating paid and unpaid work in the economy, and fostered consensus on the need for accurate estimation of contribution of women to the economy.
The Indian time use survey
India conducted a pilot time use survey from July 1998 to June 1999 in six states – Haryana, Madya Pradesh, Gujarat, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya, each representing a specific geographical area. The survey covered the total population aged 6 years and over and all activities performed by them within the reference week. To capture variation in the activity pattern, the seven days of the week were classified as normal, weekly variant and abnormal. The activity classification system allowed activities to be classified as SNA, extended SNA and non-SNA. It was felt that in this way, the survey would assist in better measuring the labour force participation rate.
In addition to time spent on each activity, the survey obtained data on whether it was paid or unpaid. Wage rate data for specialized categories of labourers, skilled and unskilled, were collected for each district covered. Since most of the women’s activities were unpaid, this allowed and estimate of the value added by women to be calculated.
The total population covered was 18,591 persons. Non-response was negligible, and 68 per cent of the households were in rural areas.
List of presentations
Lorraine Corner, UNIFEM: Use of Time Use Data for Policy Advocacy & Analysis: A Gender Perspective - you can download this paper in Acrobat format (about 10k)
Indira Hirway: Gender Approach to the Collection and Use of Data - the Time Allocation Component
Dr Ravendra Singh, Director CSO: Main Findings of the Indian Time Use Survey
Meena Acharya: Nepal Experience
Mr Niraula, Nepal Statistics Office: Census estimations of labour force & labour force questions
Dr Andrew S. Harvey: Time Use Research: The Roots to the Future
Mr Nath, CSO: Valuation of Unpaid Work
S. K. Nain, CSO: Estimation of Workforce using Census
P. K. Bose, NSSO: Estimation of the Workforce using the National Sample Survey
Naskar Sahar: Use of Time Use Survey to estimate the Workforce
Dr E Hoffmans, ILO Bureau of Statistics: Measuring working time and working time arrangements with Time Use Surveys: strength and weaknesses
Indira Hirway: Integrating Paid and Unpaid Work into Macro Economic Policies in India
Results
The objective of the meeting was essentially qualitative – to change the attitudes of a key user group, mainstream economists. However there was an observable and major shift in the attitudes of the target group during the meeting. Body language and seating patterns on the first day suggested considerable skepticism about the value of time use data in some quarters. By the end of the second day, body language and seating patterns both suggested significant support for time use data. Indeed, the participants unanimously recommended that a further time use survey be conducted to address some of the technical issues identified during the seminar, and also that smaller “case study design” time use surveys be conducted for specific purposes.
Further comments
The seminar (and the small informal meeting in the UNIFEM office) showed very clearly the tremendous benefits of the long-term relationship that the UNIFEM South Asia staff have built up over more than a decade with the Planning and Statistics sectors in Government in India (and Nepal). It was extremely impressive to sit in such a high level meeting and hear very senior men taking for granted that gender issues are among their highest priorities.
UNIFEM’s role in engendering statistics in South Asia was frequently referred to by speakers, and it was evident that they wished the partnership to continue. The UNIFEM South Asia web site has a page describing their work on Engendering Data Collection Systems in the region at:
http://www.unifem.org.in/Eco Sec and Rights Prog link 1.html
dated: 2May2003
