National Survey of Parents, 1999-2001

The National Survey of Parents, 1999-2001 was designed to
collect data on the activity patterns of American parents and on how
they divide their time among work, household tasks, child care, and
leisure activities. Information on feelings about various parenting
activities was also ascertained.
Using established time-diary procedures with Computer Assisted
Telephone Interviewing (CATI), respondents were asked to complete
"yesterday" time diaries. These diaries detailed respondents' primary
activities from midnight to midnight of the previous day, their
secondary activities (e.g., activities that occurred simultaneously
with the primary activities), and when, with whom, and where they
engaged in the activities. In addition to estimates of time use, the
project elicited information on (1) age, race/ethnicity, family
income, marital status, education, and employment status of the
respondent and spouse (if married), (2) weekly estimates of time spent
in different activities with children, (3) feelings of time pressure,
and (4) enjoyment of certain parenting activities.
There are two different data files available. Part 1, Main Data,
contains 1,200 respondent records that include respondent and
household characteristics, questions about feelings and time pressure,
and survey weights. This file also contains aggregated measures of
minutes per day in 99 detailed primary time activities, time spent in
13 locations, and time spent with different categories of people. The
Main Data Codebook documents the variables contained in Part 1.
Part 2, Time Diary Data, contains 24,814 activity records collected in
the time diary. Each primary activity record also contains information
on any simultaneous secondary activity, the location code for where
the primary activity took place, and the "with whom" code for each
primary activity. The Time Diary Codebook and Time Diary Questionnaire
document the variables contained in the Part 2.
Users who wish to link the two files should use the variable
<strong>pid</strong> contained in both data files.