In 2019, Femma Wereldvrouwen, a Belgian women’s organization experimented with a 30-hour workweek on organizational level. All full-time employees reduced their weekly working hours from 36, 34, or ...32 (depending on their age) to 30. The experiment lasted one calendar year. By integrating a sociological temporal lens and considering the different levels in the organization, this study investigates how the organization has adapted their work to a shorter workweek based on 20 in-depth interviews and 4 focus-group interviews with employees. We find that Femma Wereldvrouwen combined structural changes on organizational and team level in a formalized way, with room for individual employees to find their own new temporal strategies in a shorter workweek. These strategies relate to focused work and consciousness of time. Although this combined responsibility of making a shorter workweek work was fairly successful, Femma Wereldvrouwen also faced some challenges, such as the lack of “fun” interaction through breaks, and time for “white space” in work.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the division of household labour could continue to lock down or start to break gender roles. Using time-use data of n = 473 individuals collected during the ...lockdown restrictions in Belgium from March to May 2020, we analyse the gendered division of routine and non-routine household labour in absolute time use and relative shares. We compare against the Belgian time-use data of 2013 for the same time period (n = 678 individuals). A time-demanding work and living situation associate with an increase in men’s time spent on household labour during the lockdown but not with a change in women’s time use. The gender gap closes in absolute time but not in relative shares of routine and non-routine household labour. The limited impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender division of household labour indicates a temporal rather than a substantial change in gender roles.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
Comparing the results of two large-scale user surveys conducted in Flanders in 2004 and 2018 shows that the Flemish public library sector has successfully adapted to challenging circumstances, such ...as increasing budgetary stringency and the pervasive digitalization of society. However, it is also clear that attendance numbers have decreased in Flemish public libraries in the last two decades, especially among visitors with lower education levels, which is cause for concern. In this article, the authors present an overview of exploratory analyses that try to ascertain how many of the public libraries that took part in their study were considered to be significantly more (or less) ‘inviting’ by specific subgroups (age, gender, education level, etc.) of the visiting public. Moreover, regression analyses are presented, showing which library characteristics have a positive effect on the attendance of two under-represented groups among Flemish library users: men and the lower educated.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Active participation of the elderly is a recognized response to address the societal and individual challenges of rising life expectancy such as releasing the pressure of age-related public spending, ...reducing social isolation and improving well-being. How much time older people devote to active participation and whether their time allocation is associated with well-being remains under-investigated. Using time-use data from Belgium (
n
= 1384) and the USA (
n
= 2133), we investigate the time older people (65–80 years) spent on active participation and examine how this relates to their life satisfaction as an indicator of well-being. The countries vary in the amount of time spent on paid employment and volunteering, but not on informal help. Belgian older people spend much less time on paid employment than their American counterparts. This implies more are available to volunteer and provide informal help. Yet participation rates in these activities are higher in the USA. Multivariate analyses show that associations between active participation and life satisfaction vary between both countries and within both countries by gender and age. Overall, positive associations between paid work and volunteering and life satisfaction suggest that governments would do well to mobilize elderly into active participation, especially in Belgium. Negative associations between informal help and life satisfaction suggest governments should provide greater support for informal carers.
Previous research has shown that a prolonged recall period is associated with lower data quality in time-diary research. In these studies, the recall period is roughly estimated on the basis of the ...period between the assigned diary day and the agreed collection day. Because this is so rudimentary, little is known about the duration of the mean recall period and its consequences for data quality. Recent advances in online methodology now allow a better investigation of the recall period using time stamps. Using a refined indicator, the authors examine the duration of the recall period, to what extent this duration is related to socioeconomic characteristics, and how a prolonged recall period affects data quality. The authors demonstrate that using online time-diary data collected from 8,535 teachers in Belgium, the mean recall period is less than 24 hr for most respondents, although respondents with many time constraints have extended recall periods. Additionally, a prolonged recall period indeed has negative consequences for data quality. Quality deterioration already arises several hours after an activity has been completed, much sooner than previous research has indicated.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
► We use a socio-contextual approach of time to study domestic cooking experiences. ► Insight into cooking experiences enables understanding of time use for cooking. ► Cooking is primarily housework ...but also a leisure or caregiving activity. ► The meaning of cooking is related to individual and household characteristics. ► The meaning of cooking depends on the cooking occasion and the timing.
Cooking is one of the basic activities in our lives. However, people frequently feel they fall short of time to cook when facing problems with the temporal organization of daily life. How people think about home cooking is considered to be important for the time they spend on preparing meals. It is assumed that the meaning of cooking differs for different people, depending on the temporal and social context. This contribution allows us to clarify how the meaning of cooking varies according to individual and household characteristics and the cooking occasion. By using the pooled time-diary data from the Flemish time-use surveys from 1999 and 2004 we can examine people’s views on cooking in order to understand how people use time for food preparation. Although the results suggest that people consider cooking primarily as a household chore, preparing food can also be a way to please others, as well as themselves. It seems that feelings of time pressure and the family situation are clearly related to men’s and women’s cooking experiences. Furthermore, the meaning of cooking also tends to be clearly influenced by the meal situation and (the moment of) the day.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Virtual reality (VR) is still very much a niche technology despite its increasing popularity since recent years. VR has now reached a point where it can offer photorealistic experiences, while also ...being consumer-friendly and affordable. However, so far only a very limited amount of software has been developed for the specific purpose of conducting (social science) research. In this article, we illustrate that integrating virtual reality to good effect in social science research does not necessarily require specialized hardware or software, an abundance of expertise regarding VR-technology or even a large budget. We do this by discussing our use of a method we have come to call ‘VR-assisted interviews’: conducting a (semi-structured) interview while respondents are confronted with a virtual environment viewed via a VR-headset. This method allows respondents to focus on what they are seeing and experiencing, instead of having them worry about how to operate a device and navigate an interface they are using for the first time. ‘VR-assisted interviews’ are very user-friendly for respondents but also limits options for interactiveness. We believe this method can be a valuable alternative, both because of methodological and practical considerations, for more complex applications of VR-technology in social science research.
Everyday life is neither the result of mundane, common-sense, habitual human behaviour as theorized by the agency-centred approach of methodological individualism nor the sheer result of the ...conformation to temporal norms of the structural approach of social holism. In fact, everyday life is marked by a rhythmic, temporal structure that is brought into effect by the modality of repetitive action. In this article, a praxeological approach is used to conceptualize everyday life as a social structure in terms of its underlying stable practices. Multi-day time-diary data and optimal matching with clustering techniques show empirically that everyday life consists of stable practices that vary in function of temporal and social demands, in function of handling coordination of practice, and in function of embedding these practices in collectively shared temporal orders.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
A weeklong diary study (N = 460) into the exposure to news of Belgian (Flemish) adult media users (aged 25–45) shows that their information consumption is currently relatively diverse. An explanation ...for the observed diversity is that news consumers in Dutch-speaking Belgium have a wide array of internally balanced news titles and channels at their disposal, which they also actively consult. In addition, the study demonstrates that news consumption patterns span across all media platforms. This study thus illustrates that there is a weak influence of ideological attitudes and psychosocial dispositions on news consumption, measured in time of consumption per media title or channel. These findings call for a revision of theories of selective exposure that disregard the influence that the diversity of information supply can have on the selection procedures of recipients.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Due to the diversification and fragmentation of working time arrangements, the organisation of working weeks now differ substantially from each other. To account for week-to-week variability in ...working time estimates in time diary research, it is important that respondents keep their time diaries on designated registration days. At the same time, this week-to-week variability might lead respondents to postpone their participation to convenient registration days. Research shows that, due to diverse time cycles, postponing participation leads to substantial bias. However, these findings pre-date online time diary methodologies. In online time diary studies, algorithms assign registration days and, therefore, postponement is solely done at the convenience of the respondent and no longer relies on the availability of the interviewer. Analyses of online time diary data from Flemish (Belgian) teachers (ndiary days = 59,969; nteachers = 8567) reveal that postponement depends on (the day in) the time cycle. This postponement is partially selective and thus leads to biased working time estimates. Some oversampling strategies are suggested to account for this possible bias, but a designated, consecutive 7-day time diary approach with postponement remains the recommended standard for collecting reliable working time estimates.
Full text
Available for:
NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
