How acurate are German work time data? A comparison of time-diary with stylized estimates

Publikations-Art

Zeitschriftenbeitrag (peer-reviewed)

Autoren

Otterbach, S/Sousa-Poza, A

Erscheinungsjahr

2010

Veröffentlicht in

Social Indicators Research

Band/Volume

97/3

DOI

10.1007/s11205-009-9504-z

Seite (von - bis)

325-339

This study compares work time data collected by the German Time Use Survey (GTUS) using the diary method with stylized work time estimates from the GTUS, the German Socio-Economic Panel, and the German Microcensus. Although on average the differences between the time-diary data and the interview data is not large, our results show that significant deviations exist between these two techniques for certain types of individuals, especially those with long working hours and flexible work schedules. We also show that stylized work time estimates have insufficient variation to reproduce a true picture of working hours.