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Household Care Survey 2014: Women’s Time Allocation and Division of Tasks

The Women’s Time Allocation and Division of Tasks measure includes 6 items from Oxfam’s 2014 Household Care Survey Questionnaire (2014 HCS). Items in this measure ask female respondents about division of labor within a household and time spent by household members on work and leisure activities. The HCS is a multi-country questionnaire developed by Oxfam’s Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care (WE-Care) program to collect data on time spent by adults and children on unpaid care work and gender inequality in care work.

Categories

Geographies Tested: Colombia,Ethiopia,Philippines,Uganda,Zimbabwe

Populations Included: Female

Age Range: Adults

Items:

Instructions: Please tell me how much time other household members spent on the following activities as a primary activity in the last 24 hours (yesterday morning at 4am, finishing 3am of the current day). Sometimes it’s not easy to remember. We appreciate you responding with your best estimate, to your knowledge. This is helpful to understand how others in the household spend their time. Please just give us the best approximate estimation to your knowledge. Please divide the 24 hours among the following activity categories:

1. In the last 24 hours, how many hours did [NAME] spend on:

  • Sleep
  • Paid work (production and farm work)
  • Education
  • Meal preparation
  • Water or fuel collection
  • Cleaning the house or compoundwashing clothes
  • Caring for children
  • Caring for adults (e.g. ill, elderly, disabled)
  • Leisurepersonal caredoing nothing
  • Other activities I don’t know

Response Options:
Name of household members, __\ __ hours

Instructions: I am going to ask you several questions about how you and your partnerspouse divide each responsibility (listed below) in your household. Please disregard the help you receive from other household members. These questions are only about you and your partnerspouse.

  • Water collection
  • Fuel collection
  • Meal preparation
  • Washing, ironing, mending clothes
  • Cleaning the house or compound
  • Caring for children
  • Caring for elderly, ill, or disabled
  • Caring for community members

2. Who usually does this [task]?

Response Options:
I do always - 0
Usually me - 1
Shared equally or done together - 2
Usually my partner - 3
My partner does always - 4
Others in household do this task - 5
I don’t know - 98
No onenot applicable - 99

3. If response is ‘I do everything’ or ‘usually me’ in item 2, Would you like your partner to help you with [TASK]?

Response Options:
No - 0
Yes - 1

4. In the last month, how often have you asked your partner to help you with [TASK]?

Response Options:
Never - 0
At least once - 1
At least once a week - 2
At least once a day - 3

5. When you asked, how often has your partner helped you with [TASK]?

Response Options:
Never - 0
Sometimes when I asked - 1
Always when I asked - 2

6. If you had to spend less time on caring for people and domestic work, what would you do with your extra time?

Response Options:
More leisure timesleeppersonal care - 1
More income-generating work - 2
More agriculture - 3
Provide better direct person care (e.g. children) - 4
Engage in community activities or social life - 5
Help neighboursfriends - 6
More educationtraining - 7
More religious activities - 8
Other: _______ - 9
I don’t know - 98

Scoring Procedures

Not Applicable

Original Citation

Oxfam WE-Care. (2014). Household Care Survey Questionnaire. https://wee.oxfam.org/page/we-care-methodology


Psychometric Score

Ease of Use Score

Scoring breakdown

Formative Research

Qualitative Research

Existing Literature/Theoretical Framework

Field Expert Input

Cognitive Interviews / Pilot Testing

Reliability

Internal

Test-retest

Interrater

Validity

Content

Face

Criterion (gold-standard)

Construct

KEY

Ease of Use

Readability

Scoring Clarity

Length

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