What a time-use survey measures

India's 2024 survey covered 139,487 households containing 454,192 people aged six and over. The full report lists 3,735 people for whom time-use information could not be collected, leaving 450,457 reporting cases. These are sample counts, not estimates of India's population. MoSPI, 2024 report, Chapter 1, Table 1, p.3

Interviewers collected accounts of the previous day, from 4am to 4am, in 48 half-hour slots, using the International Classification of Activities for Time Use Statistics 2016. For multiple-activity slots, up to three activities performed for at least ten minutes were recorded. Proxy informants were permitted, so these were not all first-person diaries. MoSPI, 2024 fact sheet, pp.2–4; 2024 report, §2.10, p.55

Three measures help turn those records into a useful account. Participation tells us how common an activity was on the reference day. Time per participant tells us how long people who reported it spent in it. Time per person spreads the activity's time across everyone in the specified group, including those who did none of it.

The last measure allows a population's day to be described across all the activity categories. Participant averages cannot be assembled in the same way: the average participant in paid work and the average participant in care need not be the same person.

The method also shapes the apparent day. For the estimates used here, if more than one activity was recorded in a half-hour slot, the slot's time was divided equally among them. Cooking and caregiving recorded together would each receive 15 minutes. The result is an allocated account that fits within 24 hours, rather than a full measure of every concurrent demand. MoSPI, 2024, Chapter 1, pp.2–3

This is particularly relevant to activities such as supervision and care, which can overlap with other tasks. Attention can remain committed even while a person is doing something else. A diary's categories and allocation rules determine how much of that overlap its summary can show.

India already measures these activities. The gap this article investigates is how to connect those records to a fuller account of progress. The 2024 round used computer-assisted interviews and an explicit question about simultaneous activities. We have not adjusted the comparison for possible instrument, interview-mode or informant differences, or tested its statistical significance. MoSPI, 2024 report, Highlights and §1.2

The diary explains the method. Behind it are the people and institutions that turn records into estimates.