An Analysis On The Survey On Time Use And Leisure Activities

By introducing the concept of Gender Inequality Index of Time Allocation, the study made comparison among the 8 countries(Japan, Belgium, Germany, France, Hungary, Finland, Sweden and UK) about male and female’s dairy time use conditions, finding that the difference of time use between Japanese male and female are the most prominent, and these differences mainly come from gender division of labor in market work and unpaid housework. Then, this study utilized the data from the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities, and combined with the data from Employment Status Survey, both conducted by the Statistics Bureau of Japan, to discusses the characteristics of Japanese male and female’s time use pattern. By borrowing concept of “total work” set up by Michael Burad(2013), this study had analyzed the impacts that personal factors, such as gender, age, life stage, and economic background factor, which is represented by gross prefectural product per capital, have on gender difference in total work of Japan.While Michael Burda’s study shows a negative relationship between GDP per-capita and gender difference in total work among 27 countries, analysis of panel data from the Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities suggests that in Japan, gender difference in total work negatively related to gross prefectural product per-capital.At last, these results of data analyses were explained with consideration to Japan’s social, economic, and cultural background and characteristics, and by reviewing the relevant policies conducted in some other countries as well as the policies recently proposed by Abe government, we have give some policy implications according to our analysis results.