ACTIVITY PATTERNS OF

URBAN RESIDENTS

RICHARD K. BRAIL , is Assistant Professor of Planning in Livingston

College at Rutgers University. His current interests center on modeling systems
for the simulation of urban phenomena. He has developed prototype models
for the simulation of human activity systems, and he is currently working on
various aspects of urban environmental systems.

F. STUART CHAPIN, Jr. is Professor of Planninq at the University

..
. - .

of North Carolina and Research Director at the University’s Center for Urban
and Regional Studies at Chapel Hill. His research for the past several years has
focused on human time allocation in the urban scene, including studies off
national, metropolitan, and community scope.

Urban planners have long been accustomed to making analyses

and developing proposals as though residents of the metro-
politan area were homogeneous in their lifeways and value
orientations. The preoccupation with people as cohorts in
demographic studies appears to have diverted attention from
looking at variations in the social characteristics of the people.
Assuming basic standards of health, safety, and general welfare
are met, it is increasingly clear that facilities and services must
be more closely attuned to the life styles of client groups.
Looking toward the development of a greater sensitivity to such
concerns in urban planning, this article uses data on the
allocation of time to different activities in the course of a day
by residents of metropolitan areas for the purposes of studying
activity patterns of urbanites. It gives particular attention to the
AUTHORS’ NOTE: This research was supported by the University of North Carolina
University Research Council at Chapel Hill and the University’s Computation Center.
Data for the 1966 study came from Project B-6 of the National Cooperative Highway
/?e~earc/! Program
Research ProaTam of the
f/!e National ~?e~earc/7 Council
/Vaf/ona/ Research Cof/nc/7 and
a/7C/ National
/Vaf/ona/ Academy
~cac/en?)~ of
Sciences. Data for the 1969 study came from a study of residential mobility
supported by National Science Foundation Grant GS-2427.
Environment and Behavior, Vol. 5 No. 2, June 1973, ~ 1973 Sage Publications, I nc.

[163]
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[164]

stability of these patterns and to sources of variation attrib-

utable to personal status characteristics.
In this connection, new work in evaluation has brought out
the importance of differentiating among various constituencies
(Hill, 1968). Yet despite the new rigor in evaluating benefits
and costs, it has become clear that even these analyses must go
much further in defining the differing publics and interests
involved. To probe into these matters requires some understand-
ing of living patterns of people-how they use the facilities of a
city and what values they attach (positive and negative) to
different categories of improvements. This is a progress report
on one of an ongoing series of studies concerned with the study
of living patterns of urban residents. Since the present study is
based on a national sample and for reasons discussed below
cannot meaningfully deal with values affecting living patterns,
the present discussion will be primarily concerned with activ-
ities of the residents of urban areas.
In its broadest connotation, &dquo;activities&dquo; are forms of be-
havior of men and institutional entities (such as firms, govern-
ments, and voluntary organizations) in the pursuit of their
affairs in some locale of interest-in the national scene, a region,
or a metropolitan area. The nature of these activities can be
recorded and analyzed in various ways-for example, in terms of
dollars of transaction or in bits of information exchanged. In
the work discussed here focusing on activities of urban
residents, we use time allocation as a basis for recording and
analyzing activity. More particularly, we narrow our attention
to one segment of the urban population-namely, heads of
households and spouses of heads. This is done in part because of
their decision-making role in household moves as a means of
adapting to the environmental setting. But it is also done
because of their functions as socializing agents in our society,
serving to pass on from this to the next generations activity
patterns that have importance in satisfying the culturally and
socially defined felt needs of the society.
This report on activity patterns of urban residents provides a
profile of sorts against which analyses for an individual

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 [165]

metropolitan area can be compared. It is a particular kind of

profile not only because we limit our attention to selected and
highly aggregated measures of time use, but because under the
multistage sampling methods used, such a profile is based on
fragments of life in a number of sampled cities. In this sense, it
is a synthetic representation of living patterns in the American
urban scene. It does not possess equivalence of conditions that
derive from a single environment-from a way of life that goes
with a particular setting and its own particular set of institu-
tions and community facilities, its own peculiar social milieu,
and its own special economic character. For these reasons, it is
important to recognize that what is presented here does not
represent an integrated life system in quite the same sense that
an activity study in one metropolitan area does. While it lacks
some elements of reality that come from one functioning,

spatially integrated setting, an analysis of the human use of time

in the national scene does provide some insights into the
I ifeways of a culture.
I n the presentation below, we first sketch out the conceptual
system underlying the study reported here on human time
allocation in the urban scene. Then, after briefly discussing the
salient features about the national sample, we report on the
activity patterns of persons falling in the sample-first, in terms
of broad aggregate activity categories, and then for a few kinds
of activity, in a form more specific to daily routines.

ACTIVITY CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM

In the rationale followed here, time allocation is seen as a

means of studying how human activity affects and is affected

by the environment and how they jointly influence the

structure and functioning of the metropolitan community. It
conceives of time as a resource allocated by individuals in the
pursuit of their affairs. Through measures of time allocation and
using a systems framework, possibilities are foreseen of ana-
lyzing interrelationships between activities of population and

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[166]

those of metropolitan area assemblages of firms, governments,

various organizations, and other institutional entities. In mod-
ern society, daily life is organized around time, and time
schedules of various institutions (work places, shops, service
establishments, and public agencies) affect the time schedules of
individuals and of one another. Moreover, the environment man
has developed, for himself especially the facilities developed to
accommodate his personal and his institutions’ daily needs, also
affect time schedules. For example, time spent in commuting or
traveling to activity centers is a familiar measure for establishing
how land development as an environmental variable affects
activity patterns. Because of the complexity of dealing with
time allocations of all entities in all of these pursuits, a general
systems approach is expected to be useful in the study of
interrelations involved and the dynamics of these systems.
Development in these directions has been proposed (Hammer
and Chapin, 1972), and undoubtedly, as the behavioral sciences
begin to make use of this kind of basic theoretical work, time
allocation may well become an appealing means of studying
these interrelationships.
In a systems approach, an object system is chosen, and all
other elements are treated as the environment.’ Indeed, an
object system and some component of the environment can be
reversed, depending upon the focus of the investigator. Thus,
one can choose plant and animal elements of ecosystems as the
object system and treat human activity as a part of the
environment, or one can choose the activities of firms as the
object system and treat the behavior of other systems-house-
holds, governments and other institutional entities, ecosystems,
and so on-as components of the environment. This work
envisions the possibility of studying human activity-i.e., person
activities in the everyday world as an open object system, and
treating institutional systems of activity (those of firms,
churches and other organizations), the city physical systems
man has created for these activities, and the natural or

ecosystems as the environment. Were we in a position today to

apply general systems concepts to man-environment relation-

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 [167]

ships, for purposes of the present discussion, human activity

would be the object system. While we make no pretense of
following a systems approach in the present discussion, this
work is illustrative of the nature of one of two measures likely
to be important in a man-environment systems approach-one
focusing on human activity in time (treated here) and the other
dealing with activity in space (under study).
In the work described here, time is viewed as a resource
allocated by the individual in satisfying certain basic life needs
(e.g., sleep and food intake), certain culturally defined exten-
sions of these basic needs (e.g., work, homemaking, and
shopping), certain needs defined by the social system (e.g.,
visiting relatives, friends, or neighbors and participating in
voluntary organizations), and various needs originating from
individual enjoyment, habit, or whim (such as reading a book,
gardening, or sitting on the front porch.)’ The episodic
outcomes of the time allocation process during some given time
period (a day, a week, a year, or perhaps even a lifetime) can be
grouped into functional classes called &dquo;activities&dquo; which are
seen to have utility in interpreting how human needs are
satisfied in a metropolitan community. While from a theoretical
viewpoint time allocation can be conceived in terms of episodes
which make up the behavior patterns of individuals, from a
practical viewpoint, empirical work must deal with classes of
episodes or what we call &dquo;activity patterns&dquo; of entire aggregates
of individuals.
Accordingly, for practical purposes, time allocation studies
involve two simplifications-one in which specific events are
grouped into activity classes, and the other in which subjects are
grouped into population categories. With respect to the first, as
yet no fully standardized approach to forming activity classes
has been developed. Krantz ( 1970) has been experimenting with
a computerized form of content analysis in which activities are
defined from the semantic context of respondent diary reports
of a day’s activity. Perhaps the most widely used approach (and
the one used here) is a priori assignment of recorded events to
classes of activity under some preestablished system.3 For the
work reported here, a coding system of more than 200 activity
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[168]

categories was used to classify respondent-reported episodes,

with these codes collapsed to a 38-class system for analysis
purposes.
In perhaps the most highly collapsed form of classification,
time can be regarded as discretionary or obligatory in recogni-
tion that some activities represent to the individual more choice
and some represent less choice. It should be noted, however,
that the division between discretionary and obligatory activity
is somewhat elusive and, indeed, an activity may be discretion-
ary under some circumstances and obligatory under others.
Conceptually these polar extremes can be regarded as defining a
continuum. At one end are the most obligatory activities-those
with I ittle or no room for choice and the least latitude for
substitution. These are activities associated with basic life
processes such as sleep, food intake, and so on. At the other end
are the most discretionary activities, such as recreation, visiting,

participation in voluntary organizational activities, rest and

relaxation, and so on. For purposes of making crude estimates
of subcultural variations in time allocation to waking periods of
a day, an a priori grouping of the 38 activity codes is made into
an obligatory-discretionary dichotomy.4 We also introduce an
intermediate level of subaggregation into four classes of
discretionary activity (social interaction, participation, passive
diversions, and rest and relaxation).
In order to tie into the conceptual view of human time
allocation noted above, the second simplification is one of
aggregating respondents into groups. For purposes here, we
group people according to access opportunities and personal
status factors that tend to function as constraints and then
examine for variations in activity patterns. On the assumption
that economic factors affect an individual’s access to basic
subsistence requisites, in the work described here we use income
as a surrogate for access opportunities. Other constraints on
activity explicitly recognized in this research are the respond-
ent’s work status, sex role, and family responsibility. Con-
trolling for these factors, we then test for variations in our
measures of activity, viewing these as indicators of subcultural
differences in living patterns.
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 [169]

THE DATA SOURCES

Two data sets are used in this analysis, one obtained in 1966
and the second in 1969. Respondents were adults, either the
head of the household or the spouse. The 1966 survey consisted
of 1,467 households drawn on the basis of a multistage area
probability sample carried down to the city block level. This
resulted in the selection of 43 SMSAs in the 48-state portion of
the United States and within these some 129 sampling units or
city blocks where quota sampling was used to get approximate-
ly equal numbers of heads of households and spouses and
proportional representation of race, age and employment status.
The 1969 survey consisted of 1,199 of the 1966 households
which were successfully recontacted. Both surveys were con-
ducted for the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the
University of North Carolina by the National Opinion Research
Center of the University of Chicago.
Since both surveys were undertaken for another study, one
concerned with residential mobility, the activity part was
secondary and thus the costs of obtaining data on activities in
interviews had to be kept to a minimum. As a result, we were
unable to include questions that would explore value-related
factors about the activities falling in a day’s itinerary. Moreover,
a retrospective activity listing form had to be used instead of
the preferred self-administered diary which is picked up and
checked on callback two days after the initial visit. Interviewer
instructions called for systematic interviewing through all the
days of the week so as to obtain proportional representation of
all seven days. Respondents were asked to reconstruct &dquo;yester-
day’s&dquo; nonpersonal activities from the time they got up to the
time they retired. Each activity was identified as an in-home or
an out-of-home activity. Both 1966 and 1969 samples will be

examined, including a comparative analysis of the two samples.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SAMPLES

Before describing activity patterns of urban residents it is

important to understand something of the nature of the samples
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[170]

taken. Since we have described the 1966 sample in an earlier

report (Chapin and Brail, 1969), we will only outline several of
the more important characteristics of the samples and how the
1966 and 1969 samples are related.
In the initial contact in 1966, respondents were interviewed
and information obtained on personal characteristics, residential
preferences and moving behavior, and their activities for a single
previous day in their lives. The respondents were predominantly
white (82%) and, as might be expected, the sample was nearly
equally divided between the sexes. More than half the sample
had total family incomes of $6,750 or greater. The location of
the housing unit was controlled in sample selection so that
roughly half lived in a central city and half in a surrounding
suburb. This means that the sample is made up primarily of
white middle-class adults.
In 1969, the same households were recontacted and again
respondents were asked questions about moving behavior and
their activities for a previous day. If the original household had
moved, an effort was made to locate the household. Of the
original 1,467 households contacted in 1966, 1,199, or 82%
were successfully recontacted in 1969. Of these 1,199 house-

holds, interviews with the same respondents as 1966 totaled

1,003. The remaining interviews were held with other house-
hold members. The 1969 sample is similar in composition to the
1966 sample. Eighty-three percent of the sample was white,
versus 82% of the 1966 respondents. While 69% of the 1966
sample were 35 years of age or older, a larger proportion (78%)
were in this category in 1969, reflecting the expected aging
because of the 3-year interval.

STABILITY OVER TIME

A valid question canbe asked at this point: are there

significant variations in activity structure between the 1966 and
1969 samples? After all, it is true that the two samples utilize
essentially the same respondents. Before answering this ques-
tion, we wish to stress that for a number of reasons only
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 [171]

preliminary judgments about activity choice and structure over

time can be made from this study.
First, three years is not a particularly long period of time in
which to expect significant shifts in the time allocation of
metropolitan Americans. Second, the samples, although similar,
are not the same, and variations between 1966 and 1969
activity data could be attributed to new respondents inter-
viewed in 1969 but not in 1966 (although in the same
household). Finally, survey cost considerations did not permit
us to specify the same day of the week in 1969. as in 1966. Both

previous work and casual observation has indicated that the

American five-day work week is a major structuring element in
activity choice and that the weekend days, Saturday and
Sunday, are different from weekdays. For purposes of these
analyses, all weekdays are combined and treated as a &dquo;typical
weekday.&dquo; The experience of urban transportation studies in
the use of broad activity categories of the kind we will be using
here indicate that the typical weekday assumption does not
alter the problem greatly (Brail, 1969). However, there is the
possibility of variation arising from our inability to control the
day of the week on which activities are recorded for respond-
ents in the 1966 and 1969 samples.
In spite of these problems with the data, the comparison of
1966 and 1969 weekday activity data is instructive. Utilizing
the four broad discretionary activity categories discussed earlier
as well as a number of obligatory activity classes, we can see the
remarkable amount of stability between the two samples.
Inspection of the 1966 and 1969 data, controlling for sex,
indicates that the results are quite similar. The greatest
difference between the two samples occurs in the reading
activity undertaken by males where, in 1969, men read on the
average three-tenths of an hour more. Sampling fluctuations are
such that we can conclude that there is virtually no difference
between 1966 and 1969. On the most aggregative level, the only
difference of possible significance is the increase of one
quarter-hour in total discretionary time for males on weekdays.
The stability of the data over this three-year period is as
reassuring as it is instructive. The lack of wide variations
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[172]

TABLE 1
DURATIONS OF SELECTED ACTIVITIES IN MEAN HOURS PER
PERSON IN SAMPLE OR SUBSAMPLE, BY SEX-WEEKDAYS,
1966 AND 1969

NOTE: Travel time connected with an activity is included in the mean hours shown
for that activity.

between samples, in spite of the relatively complex data

collection and coding process involved in preparing free-form
activity data for analysis, is reassuring. Also, it becomes obvious
that any attempts at monitoring what people do and where they
do it over time requires a set of rigorous controls which is
cognizant of variations in activity structure by day of the week.

THE ALLOCATION OF TIME

Americans in metropolitan areas allocate their 24-hour days

to a selected subset of all the various activities open to
individuals in a Western postindustrialized society. As noted
above, at the most aggregative level of classification, activities
can be grouped as obligatory and discretionary. But also as
noted earlier, the distinction is sometimes difficult to deter-
mine. For example, is a shopping trip made to purchase goods
to maintain a household which at the same time is viewed by
the respondent as an out-of-home recreational venture a
discretionary or an obligatory activity?
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 [173]

Since a firm differentiation between obligatory and discre-

tionary categories is important to our analysis, some further
specification of the makeup of these two categories may be
useful. Within the obligatory group, three broad sets of activity
categories will be examined: work, shopping and personal
services, homemaking, plus a catch-all set of other obligatory
activities.
The discretionary activities have been grouped under four
labels: social interaction, participation, passive diversions, and
rest and relaxation. Social interaction activities include visiting
and social izing activities with family, friends, and neighbors.
The dominant theme of these activities is two-way communica-
tion about topics of common interest. The participation
activities have a dominant action component and include such
activities as taking part in organizational activities, pursuing
hobbies, and engaging in participant sports. At the polar
extreme from the participation activities are the passive
diversions where individuals are consuming information while
reading, watching television, and attending movies and sports
events. Finally, there are the rest and relaxation activities where
the individual indicates that he is &dquo;loafing.&dquo; This collapsed
system of three obligatory and four discretionary activity
categories contains all the activities in the larger 38-code
system.
Utilizing the sevenfold activity classification scheme, how
does the average metropolitan area resident spend his time?
Noting the importance of sex differentiation brought out above
and taking into account expectations of differences by the day
of the week, Table 2 presents a broad picture of time allocation
in metropolitan areas. The figures in Table 2 are the durations
of the various activity classes. The values in the table, then, are
group means calculated for all persons in the sample or
subsample regardless of whether or not a particular individual
performed the activity. In this analysis, we shall examine group
means throughout rather than means based only on those who

participate in the activity. The group mean for a particular

activity class is a function of both the percentage of the group

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[174]

TABLE 2
DURATIONS OF SELECTED ACTIVITIES IN MEAN HOURS PER
PERSON IN SUBSAMPLE BY DAY OF THE WEEK AND
SEX, 1969

NOTE: Travel time connected with an activity is included m the mean hours shown
for that activity.

actually performing the activity and how long the activity is

performed by each of the participants. This measure is a useful
summary. In particular, it has the property that means of
individual activity classes can be summed to represent obliga-
tory, discretionary, and total waking hour aggregates for the
day.’
A brief perusal of Table 2 shows the differences between the
weekdays and weekend days.’ Respondents are awake longer
on weekdays than on weekend days and spend more of their

waking hours performing obligatory activities. The amount of

discretionary time available to both males and females is greater
on weekends, particularly Sunday, than on weekdays. If these
data reflective of the real-world situation and if there is no
are

significant underreporting of leisure activities, then, although

the phrase &dquo;a woman’s work is never done&dquo; overstates the case,
she has every right to claim that a man’s work gets done sooner.
Possible underreporting of discretionary time might occur if
those extensive blocks of time women sometimes reported as

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 [175]

housework did indeed contain short stretches of leisure time,

such as socializing or watching television. It is, of course, also
true that men on the job take coffee breaks and get involved in
non-job-connected conversations. Whatever the case, at this
point we can conclude that there is differential access to
discretionary time for all days of the week under the present
allocation of household functions by sex.
Intuitively we expect some sex variation in time allocation.
Other general factors which come readily to mind as a source of
variation are age of respondent and the occupational status of
the head of the household. Before turning to the analysis
framework we propose to explore in this article, what can we
say about age and occupation as sources of variation? Also, are
there variations according to SMSA size? Table 3 provides some
insights on these factors from the 1966 survey. Although there
are some differences in activity categories used here from those
used in other tables, there is sufficient similarity so that it is
possible to give an indication of variations in time allocation on
these three dimensions.
Examining results by age group, as might be expected there
are some pronounced differences in the mean times devoted to
several classes of activity for the elderly as compared with those
for persons in the middle years or even for persons in an earlier
period of adulthood. Because of retirement, work is relatively
minor, but recreation and other diversions, watching TV, and
rest-relaxation-indeed, the total amount of discretionary ac-
tivity-absorb significantly larger amounts of time. Although
differences are less sizeable, subjects who are in the earlier
period of adulthood appear to spend significantly more time on
housework, child care and home maintenance and more time on
socializing but significantly less time on rest and relaxation than
those in the middle years. Looking at discretionary activities
across the columns, it can be seen-not surprisingly-that time

spent on socializing falls off with advancing years, while time

spent on such passive forms of activity as watching television
and rest-relaxation increases.
In contrast to results by age, when respondents are grouped

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 [177]

by occupation or by city size, there appear to be almost no

significant differences in time allocation. With respect to
occupation, those in households where the head has a relatively
low-status job spend significantly more time watching TV than
those in households from the middle-status group; and though
at a weaker level of significance (a level p .20), those in the =

middle group spend more time at television than those in the

high-status occupation group. Looking at discretionary activities
across columns, time devoted to socializing goes up with
occupation status while time spent on television goes down,
although differences are not at uniformly high levels of
significance. City size brings out no statistically significant
differences in time allocation.
Thus far, we have described the daily time allocations of
metropolitan area residents in general terms. Since, as brought
out above, previous investigations have shown that the sex role
of the respondent is a strong predictor of the activity choices an
individual makes (Chapin and Brail, 1969; Hammer and Chapin,
1972), in this description, the sex of the respondent has been
introduced as a control variable without exploration. Obviously,
in spite of the current movements toward reducing sex
discrimination, the fact remains that role definition and tasks
are closely tied to the sex of the individual. The use of sex as an

exploratory variable is one way of partially encompassing the

role component in activity choice.
Earlier investigations have indicated that there is a range of
other variables associated with activity choice. These include
environmental and attitudinal factors as well as personal status
variables. However, because we were unable to include in the
survey questionnaire environment-oriented attitudinal questions
directly relating to activity choices, we shall focus here wholly
on a set of personal status variables and shall even exclude any
direct consideration of several general environmental factors
which hypothetically relate to activity choice such as access or
amenity considerations. We proceed in this fashion because of
the already demonstrated predictive power of personal status
variables over the relatively weak set of indirect environmental

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[178]

measures we have used previously on a national level (Chapin

and Brail, 1969).
In addition to the sex of the respondent, three other personal
status variables are used: the child care responsibility of the
respondent, his or her working status, and the household
income level. We hypothesize that each in its own way makes a
unique contribution to structuring activity choice. For each of
these four variables, the samples is examined in dichotomous
categories, making an eight-cell classification of respondents.
We have already discussed the use of the sex of the
respondent as an exploratory variable. The dichotomy of the
family responsibility variable is on the basis of whether or not
there are children under fourteen present in the household. Two
points are important here. First, the sample consists of heads of
households or their spouses: both are assumed to have some
degree of commitment to any children residing in the house-
hold, particularly if any of these children are under fourteen
years of age. Second, this family responsibility variable is a
partial measure of the stage in the life cycle of the respondent.’7
The third personal status variable is the work status of the
respondent, broken dichotomously into those who work full-
time and those who do not. We shall focus on weekday
activities from this point on, and assume that weekday activities
are structured in part by whether or not a respondent is

working.
Finally, we will examine the effects of income. We will adjust
raw family income for household size. Since the variable is
broken dichotomously into low-income and high-income
classes, adjusting for household size means that more income is
required as the number of household members increases in
order to be placed in the high-income class.
The earlier three variables-sex of respondent, family respon-
sibility, and employment status-are thought to act as con-
straints on activity choice. The role into which the individual.is
thrust as a function of these personal status variables significant-
ly affects the individual’s use of time. Income, on the other
hand, may be regarded as having a different effect on activity

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 [179]

choice. Basically, incomeis both a measure of socioeconomic

status and an indicator of the resources available to the
respondent to provide one and one’s family with necessary and
desired goods and services. We shall use the income variable as a
reflection of the individual’s preferences for discretionary
activity elements which mesh with his life style.8
A framework for analysis thus begins to emerge. We suggest
that individuals are constrained in how much discretionary time
is available to them by a role structure reflected by the three
variables-sex, family responsibility, and working status. How-
ever, individuals do not spend their allotment of discretionary
time as a function of these three variables. Rather, we argue
here that the combination of socioeconomic status and the
access to goods and services reflected in the income variable

significantly affects how a fixed block of time is allocated

among alternative discretionary activities. More particularly, we
suggest that income can be used as a surrogate for the
propensity of the individual to spend time out of home
performing discretionary activities.
To expand upon this general framework, we shall test a set of
hypotheses embedded here. First, we suggest that there is a
relationship between the sex, family responsibility level, and
working status of the respondent and the raw amount of
discretionary time available. We further suggest that there is a
continuum of discretionary time established along which the
various combinations of these three variables can be placed.
Males, those not working full-time, and those without young
children will have more discretionary time than their dichot-
omous counterparts.
Following this reasoning, we hypothesize that unemployed
males without young children would have the greatest amount
of discretionary time. So also, the employed women with young
children would have the least amount of discretionary time. We
could not be certain exactly where the other groups formed by
combinations of these three personal status variables would lie
on the continuum of the amount of discretionary time, except
that all of the remaining six groups would locate between the
two polar extremes.
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[180]

TABLE 4
DURATIONS FOR MAJOR ACTIVITY CATEGORIES BY
EMPLOYMENT STATUS, SEX, AND THE PRESENCE OF YOUNG
CHILDREN-WEEKDAYS, 1966

In Table 4, we can see that the hypothesis about the effects

of the three variables on discretionary time is supported.
Females working full-time with young children do indeed have
the least amount of discretionary time. The other six groups
formed by combinations of sex, working status, and presence of
young children have discretionary times between the polar
extremes. The differences in magnitude of reported discre-
tionary time are extreme. For example, the male respondent
without a full-time job or children has better than three times
the amount of discretionary time than the working woman with
children. One can also see that there is an inverse relationship
between the amount of discretionary time and the number of
hours a respondent is awake. The less one is constrained by
waking-hour demands placed on the individual, the greater the
time the person has both to sleep and choose what to do during
waking hours.
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 [181]

The second is that income has no effect on the

hypothesis
amount of time available to the eight groups
discretionary
formed by combinations of the sex, family responsibility, and
working status variables. In Table 5, we can observe some
variation in discretionary time available: there are differences as
great as eight-tenths of an hour between low- and high-income
respondents. However, none of the differences is statistically
significant.9 Although some of the variations in discretionary
times by income class are quite logical, we cannot conclude at
this time that these differences do exist in the population. It is
interesting to note, for example, that high-income women, both
with and without children and working full-time, do have more
discretionary time than their low-income counterparts. This
situation is perhaps explainable by the availability of domestic
help and the possibility that high-income working women are
TABLE 5
DURATIONS OF TOTAL DISCRETIONARY TIME BY EMPLOYMENT
STATUS, SEX, PRESENCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN, AND
INCOME-WEEKDAY, 1966

a. None of the differences of means between income levels is statistically significant

at the .05 level.

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[182]

more likely to share household responsibilities with a partner.

In general, there is little reason to believe from the data that
there are significant relationships between an individual’s
income level and the amount of discretionary time available
when sex, employment status, and the presence of children are
controlled.
Beyond the question of how much discretionary time a

person has is the further of how the available time is spent.

one
Our earlier framework indicated that the income variable,
reflecting socioeconomic status and access to goods and
services, is a significant determinant of how a block of
discretionary time would be allocated. Having broken the
discretionary activities into four major groups-social, partici-
pation, passive, and rest and relaxation-we hypothesize that
higher-income respondents will tend both to be more active and
to interact to a greater degree with people around them. Thus,
the higher-income groups controlling for sex, employment
status, and famiily responsibility, will spend more time on a
given weekday in social and participation activities and less in
passive and rest and relaxation activities than the lower-income
counterparts.
Our third hypothesis, then, is that the high-income respond-
ent, when sex, employment status, and presence of children are
controlled, will be more likely to engage in active participatory
and social interactive activities than lower-income respondents.
Hence, the group means for higher-income respondents will be
greater in these two discretionary activity categories. In Table 6,
of the sixteen respondent-group and activity-class combinations
(eight groups and two classes, social interaction and partici-
pation), there are twelve combinations where high-income
respondents spent more time than their low-income counter-
parts. Using the &dquo;sign&dquo; test based on the binomial, the
likelihood of finding twelve combinations all in the same
direction-in this case, high income greater than low income-is
less than four percent. ° Hence, we can conclude that there is a
statistically significant relationship between income and the
propensity to perform social interaction and participation
activities.

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 [183]

TABLE 6
DURATIONS OF DISCRETIONARY ACTIVITIES IN MEAN HOURS
PER PERSON IN SUBSAMPLE BY EMPLOYMENT STATUS, SEX,
PRESENCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN, AND INCOME-WEEKDAY, 1966

Statistical significance aside, the fact that three-quarters of

the activity class and respondent group combinations do have
higher durations for upper-income respondents does seem to
indicate that there is a moderately strong relationship between
income and the more interactive activities. Unfortunately, the
reversals to this general direction seem to follow no discernible
trend. Both sexes, working statuses, and family responsibility
situations, as well as both activity classes, are included in the
reversals.111
We have already determined that, within the eight respondent
groups, there is relatively little difference between the two
income groups regarding the total amount of discretionary time
available. Thus, if high-income respondents do have a tendency
to perform social interaction and participation activities for a
greater proportion of a relatively fixed total discretionary time
than low-income respondents, we would expect these same

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[184]

high-income respondents to spend less time at the other

component activity classes of the discretionary group-passive
and rest and relaxation.
In Table 5 we can see that, for both the passive and rest and
relaxation activity classes, only three of the eight classes each
had high-income respondents with a greater discretion. Hence,
there is a propensity for upper-income respondents to spend
more time on interactive activity classes and less on passive
diversions and relaxation.
Not only do higher-income respondents have a propensity to
perform the social interactive and participatory activities, we
also hypothesize that as a group high-income respondents would
spend more of their discretionary time out of home. It is well
demonstrated that there is a positive association between
income and number of trips made by a household during a
weekday (which correspond for our purposes here with out-of-
home activities).12I Following this lead, we suggest that high-
income individuals have greater &dquo;space preference&dquo; than their
lower-income counterparts, spending more time out of home on
discretionary pursuits. In Table 7, we see confirmation of this
hypothesis. We observe that in only one case of the eight for
both the group mean data and the percentage of total
discretionary time calculation does the low-income group have a
greater value than the high-income corollary. Under the &dquo;sign&dquo;
test, the likelihood of such an event occurring is less than one in
twenty if we assume that there is no relationship between
income and out-of-home propensity in the population.13

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 [185]

TABLE 7
DURATIONS OF TOTAL OUT-OF-HOME DISCRETIONARY TIME BY
EMPLOYMENT STATUS, SEX, PRESENCE OF YOUNG CHILDREN
AND INCOME-WEEKDAY, 1966

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Out of this discussion, a portrait of time allocation among

urban residents begins to emerge. First, we have suggested a
framework for dealing with the temporal and spatial patterns of
individuals on a daily and weekly basis.&dquo; This framework
places interactions over space and time within a systems
framework where individuals are conceived of as being in
continual interaction with a perceived environment. Second, we
have determined that free-form activity coding can be replicated
with a suitable level of accuracy. The 1966 and 1969 activity
data are remarkably similar in structure in spite of certain
methodological drawbacks.
Third, we suggest the possibilities of differentiating among
life styles through analysis of activity data by four status

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[186]

variables-sex, family responsibility, employment status, and

income. We suggest that there are vast differences in the amount
of discretionary time available to individuals as a function of
the constraints placed upon them. These constraints are
represented by the role situation into which the individual is
thrust. The sex of the respondent, the responsibility incurred in
raising children, and the respondent’s working status jointly
structure this role situation. However, the income level of the
individual does not seriously affect how much discretionary
time an individual has who is constrained by a role situation.
Rather, income levels affect how the individual spends his
allocation of discretionary time.
Aggregate discretionary time in a community is partially
related to the different percentages of the eight groups formed
by combinations of the sex, family responsibility, and employ-
ment status variables. How a community’s lump sum is spent is
a function of income levels to a degree. Even more, the amount
of time spent out of home is a function of income.
Two communities of different income levels with the same
status-variable mix would have approximately the same amount
of discretionary time. For example, a low-income community
of 10,000 adults and the same mix of sex, employment status,
and family responsibility classes as found in the sample used
would have approximately 48,500 hours of discretionary time
during a typical weekday. The high-income corollary com-
munity would have 49,000 hours, a difference of about 2%.
Yet, if we examine out-of-home discretionary time, we find that
while the low-income community spends 8,200 hours out of
home, the high-income spends 11,800 hours. This is a difference
of about 44%, certainly a significant amount of time in terms of
the space preference exhibited.
Obviously, these estimates of total discretionary time for
adults in a community are very rough. However, certain
questions can be asked as a result of this analysis. First, does the
invariant quality of total discretionary time between the
low-income and the high-income group of respondents suggest
that, as income increases in a post-industrialized affluent
society, there will not be more total leisure for a lower-income
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 [187]

group? Rather, will the group simply shift its discretionary

activity preferences, spending more time out of home and in
social interaction and active pursuits? It may be that these shifts
in discretionary activity choices occur only insofar as the
provision of additional income increases access to desired goods
and services which, in turn, imply different activity choices. If
the income variable is operating only as a surrogate for
socioeconomic status, then shifts in income alone may not be
sufficient to alter discretionary activity choice. Shifts in levels
of education and social class may also be required.
Second, is there some correlation between income and
activity choice such that any future increases in real income for
high-income groups will also mean proportionately more out-
of-home and social interchange and participation activities than
at present? Could we expect continued expansion of the
utilization of space outside the residence on a per capita basis?
If we examine some of the recent literature on projected auto
ownership and trip-making behavior, we can easily conclude
5
that such increased space utilization is a distinct possibility. 1
How much of an increase is possible before a leveling off point
is reached is an interesting item for further analysis.
The tentative conclusions and subsequent questions which
this analysis has generated are only the harbingers of much-
needed research in the area. Eventually, a framework of societal
and environmental performance indicators may evolve from
such work which meshes the temporal and spatial interaction of
individuals and groups with the dynamics of urban spatial
structure. Through the experimental social learning possibilities
of detailed man-environment studies, we may yet be able to
construct a meaningful monitoring and feedback system for the
better planning and development of our cities.

NOTES

1. One excellent example is Hill and Fagen (1968).

2. For a fuller discussion see Chapin et al. (1973: ch. 7).
3. Perhaps the most widely recognized system of this kind is the one developed
by the 12-nation consortium of Eastern and Western European social scientists (plus

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[188]

representatives from the United States) which developed a 99-code system (see
Szalai, 1966).
4. The 38 codes used in this classification system and grouped according to
obligatory and discretionary activities were: Obligatory Activities: Principal job,
other income-related activities, personal care, eating, shopping, recuperating from
illness and medical care utilization, maintenance of home-yard-car, housework and
childcare, miscellaneous household chores (including pet care or walking the pet),
other miscellaneous activities, and other nondiscretionary activities not elsewhere
classfied. Discretionary Activities: Nonjob connected education, child-centered
activities, family communications or socializing, overseeing children’s activities,
family outings and drives, other family activities (such as weddings and trips to
relatives), communicating or socializing with friends at home, visiting in the
neighborhood, visiting outside the neighborhood, other socializing activities, napping
and loafing, reading newspapers and magazines, reading books, cultural activities
(such as going to concerts, theatre or museums), movies, television, radio, crafts and
hobbies, walking or window shopping, driving around (not with family), participant
sports, spectator sports, out-of-town holidays, other recreation, religious activities,
meetings of voluntary organizations, public affairs and service activities.
5. If durations for a particular activity class are averaged over the participants in
that activity (the participant mean) rather than over all members of the group
whether or not they performed the activity (the group mean), then one cannot sum
individual activity means to a more aggregative level&mdash;e.g., the mean for all
discretionary time. There have been three measures traditionally used to describe
activity data&mdash;the group mean, the participant mean, and the percentage of the group
performing the activity. Any two of these measures completely describe the data: the
third can be calculated given these two measures, if the size of the group is known.
6. Obviously, if the four- or three-day workweek becomes a reality for a goodly
number of Americans, then combining Monday through Friday data will be
inappropriate.
7. The product-moment correlation coefficient between the age of the
respondent and the level of family responsiblility he incurs in 1969 is .64. We suggest
that this family responsibility variable only partially represents an underlying stage in
life-cycle dimensions. Both the older and very young heads of household will be
likely not to have children under fourteen in the household, while the young and
middle-aged marrieds would.
8. For purposes of this study, income is thus regarded as a surrogate for other
factors we were unable to incorporate into the original survey. It should be noted
that under circumstances where other factors predisposing a person to engage in a
discretionary activity can be introduced into the analysis, income can then be treated
as a personal status factor (for example, see Chapin et al., 1973: ch. 7). We suspect
that the part of the population at the bottom of the income ladder may well be
deprived of choice to the degree where they also have less discretionary time than
those in better economic conditions. Unfortunately, our sample, focusing as it does
on white middle-class America, does not contain any significant number of the urban

poor. Certainly there is more texture to the analysis of the effects of income on the
availability of discretionary time than can be presented here. For example, if one
breaks the 1966 sample into three income groups&mdash;low, middle, and high&mdash;we find
that total discretionary time is relatively similar across income categories for those

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 [189]

not working full-time. However, among working respondents, those in the middle-
income category generally have the least amount of discretionary time. Whether this
situation is a function of the Protestant ethic, sampling fluctuations, or other factors,
it should be realized that the income variable is a multidimensional component of
activity choice.
9. Under a difference-of-means test, none of the eight groups is statistically
significant at the 95% level.
10. The "sign" test using the binomial sampling distribution records those
situations where upper-income durations exceed lower-income durations as "+."
Also, the opposite situation is recorded as "-." The null hypothesis of no
relationship between income and the two activity classes, social interaction and
participation, suggests that there should be a .5 probability of a "+" occurring. There
are no differences in the population, then, between the low- and high-income

individuals in time spent on the two activity classes. The probability of finding twelve
"+" or "&mdash;" values is .038 under this null hypothesis assumption (see Blalock, 1972).
11. It should be noted that the calculations on the percentage of total time spent
in each activity class generally follows the corollary analysis of the durations just

completed. Five of sixteen combinations exhibit reversals, where lower-income

respondents have greater values than their higher-income counterparts. The extra
reversal is the social interaction activity for working males with no children.
12. See, for example, Memmott and Guinn (1968).
13. The probability of having one reversal out of a group of eight is .035 under
the binomial sampling distribution.
14. See, for example, Medvedkov (1971), for a call to the development of a
theory of urban space including time-budgets and spatial interaction patterns.
15. An interesting attempt at assessing future travel patterns can be found in
Sagasti and Ackoff (1971).

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BRAIL, R. K. (1969) Activity System Investigations: Strategy for Model Design. Ann
Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms.
CHAPIN, F. S., Jr., and R. K. BRAIL (1969) "Human activity systems in the
metropolitan United States." Environment and Behavior 1 (December).
CHAPIN, F. S., Jr., E. W. BUTLER, and F. C. PATTEN (1973) Blackways in the
Inner City. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
FORRESTER, J. W. (1969) Urban Dynamics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
HALL, A. D. and R. E. FAGEN (1968) "Definition of a system," in W. Buckley (ed.)
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HILL, M. (1968) "A goals-achievement matrix for evaluating alternative plans." J. of
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KRANTZ, P. (1970) "What do people do all day?" Behavioral Sci. 15 (May).

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MEDVEDKOV, Y. (1971) "Internal stucture of a city: an ecological assessment."

Regional Sci. Assn. Papers 27.
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REISS, A. J., Jr. (1961) Occupations and Social Structure. New York: Free Press.
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