WHAT DO YOUNG SOUTH AFRICANS DO WITH THEIR TIME? II - THE UNEMPLOYED AND THE ECONOMICALLY INACTIVE

Youth Brief 7 considered the patterns of time use among young people who are (1) working and (2) not working but undergoing education. This brief deals with the patterns among unemployed and not economically active young people. It will also discuss the places at which young people spend their time.

Time use among the unemployed[1] and the economically inactive.

The methodology of Youth Brief 7 is used in the first part of this brief. Table 1 sets out the average number of minutes per week day spent by the unemployed and the economically inactive across the various types of activity.

Table 1 - Youth in employment, education and training
Weekdays
Average minutes per day
	Unemployed		Not economically active
	Men	Women	Men	Women

At work	7	4	5	5
Seeking work	36	8	4	1
Work-related travel	17	5	4	2
At education institution	0	0	0	0
Education-related travel	0	0	0	0
Household maintenance	140	275	136	258
Care of persons	9	65	5	59
Community service	7	4	5	5
Social and cultural activities	221	120	266	128
Mass media	205	171	218	159
Sleeping and related activities	600	593	614	611
Other personal care	196	182	191	194

Total	1438	1427	1448	1422

Unemployed men spend an average of 36 minutes per day looking for work and a further 17 minutes in associated travel. Unemployed women hardly search at all, and the time use patterns are very similar to among economically inactive women. As in the case of workers and learners, women bear a heavier burden of household maintenance and care of persons than men, leaving them less time for social and cultural activities.

Table 2 compares time use between the unemployed and workers. A negative entry indicates that the unemployed spend less time on average on the relevant activity and a positive sign that the unemployed spend more time. For men, the unemployed spend 438 minutes on average less than the employed on work and education related activities, and more time (in descending order) on social and cultural activities, watching television and videos and listening to the radio and music, household maintenance, sleeping, looking for work and personal care.

Table 2 - Comparison of time use patterns
between the unemployed and workers
Week days
Average minutes per day

	Men	Women

At work	-371	-324
Seeking work	36	8
Work-related travel	-40	-47
At education institution	-22	-15
Education-related travel	-5	-3
Household maintenance	75	128
Care of persons	6	34
Community service	4	0
Social and cultural activities	107	44
Mass media	101	78
Sleeping and related activities	87	74
Other personal care	24	18

Total	2	-5

The pattern for women is to spend more time on household maintenance, then on mass media, sleeping, social and cultural activities, care of persons, and personal care.

The Time Use Survey asked a question about whether people felt that they had been too busy, comfortable, or not busy enough on the day for which information was collected. The findings are summarized in Table 3. The findings are not surprising for workers and learners, but it is interesting to see that the relatively low numbers of unemployed (41% for men and 21% for women) who felt that they were not busy enough. The question is why the remainder want to work if they already had a comfortable number of things to do or had too many things to do. Presumably, there must be a desire to reorganise their days, economising on social and cultural activities, watching television and videos and listening to the radio and music, household maintenance, and sleeping,

Table 3 - Overall assessment of day
Weekdays
	Workers	Learners	Unemployed	Inactive
Men

Had too many things to do	21,7%	7,9%	24,3%	0,0%
Had a comfortable number of things to do	59,7%	78,2%	34,8%	61,8%
Had too few things to do	18,7%	13,9%	40,9%	38,2%

Total	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%

Women

Had too many things to do	15,5%	16,3%	9,7%	19,0%
Had a comfortable number of things to do	68,9%	66,1%	69,0%	66,0%
Had too few things to do	15,6%	17,6%	21,3%	15,0%

Total	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%

Where do young people spend their weekdays?

The time use study asked a question about the location of activities. The distribution by time across places of activity is set out in Table 4.

As a rough guide to assessing Table 4, consider a person with a nine-to-five job, who spends an hour per day travelling to and from work and another hour per day outside the home, shopping or socialising between Monday and Friday. Then the proportion of time spent at home would be 58.3%, not far below the 61.7% for young men, but considerably below the 68.7% for young women. In comparison with workers, learners spend a higher proportion of their day at home, because the average time spent at educational institutions is lower than the average time spent at work, with less time spent at other dwellings or in public.

The most remarkable thing about Table 4 is the percentage of time spent at home by the unemployed and economically inactive. Young unemployed and inactive men get out and about for approximately twice as long as their female counterparts, who stay at home for a staggering 91% of their day. Without earnings of their own, young women spend a higher proportion of their time at home than prisoners spend in their cells. The effect must be stultifying.

Table 4 -Places at which activities are carried out
Distribution by time
Weekdays
	Workers	Learners	Unemployed	Inactive
Men

At home	61,7%	69,2%	81,8%	83,5%
Another dwelling	4,6%	2,6%	7,8%	7,8%
At work	20,7%	0,3%	0,8%	0,4%
At education	1,4%	18,9%	0,1%	0,2%
In public	5,1%	2,7%	4,5%	3,9%
Travel	6,5%	6,4%	5,1%	4,2%

Total	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%

Women

At home	68,1%	72,7%	91,1%	91,0%
Another dwelling	3,4%	1,7%	3,1%	3,4%
At work	17,8%	0,2%	0,3%	0,3%
At education	1,3%	17,8%	0,1%	0,1%
In public	3,7%	1,7%	2,6%	2,5%
Travel	5,6%	5,9%	2,9%	2,7%

Total	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%

Charles Simkins

Head of Research

charles@hsf.org.za

NOTES

[1] Workers and learners are excluded from the analysis. The unemployed include discouraged workers. Both groups would like to work. The economically inactive are those who do not wish to work.