The Time Use Survey (TUS) is a statistical concept and a periodic national scheme in India, conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI). The primary objective of the TUS is to measure the participation of persons in both paid and unpaid activities, providing a framework for measuring time dispositions by the population on different activities.
The TUS was created to solve the problem of traditional surveys failing to capture the time spent on non-market activities, particularly unpaid caregiving and unpaid domestic services, which are crucial for understanding gender inequalities and the contribution of this work to the national economy. The first all-India Time Use Survey was conducted by the NSO during January to December 2019.
The mechanism of the TUS involves collecting detailed information on how individuals spend their 1,440 minutes in a day. Data is collected through personal interviews from household members aged 6 years and above, with a reference period of 24 hours. This 24-hour period is split into 48 time slots of 30 minutes each, and respondents report the activities performed in each slot. The activities are classified into nine major divisions, following the International Classification of Activities for Time Use Statistics 2016 developed by the United Nations.
The TUS connects directly to the broader national statistical framework and is a vital source of data for policy formulation, especially concerning gender statistics and the labour force. It provides insights that complement the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) by detailing the time allocation between paid work, unpaid work, and personal activities.
The TUS has been recently updated: the second all-India Survey was conducted during January to December 2024. A key finding from the 2024 survey was an increase in the participation of females (aged 15-59 years) in employment-related activities to 25 per cent from 21.8 per cent in 2019, and a slight reduction in the time women spent on unpaid domestic work from 315 minutes/day in 2019 to 305 minutes/day in 2024. However, the data also showed that women still spent significantly more time on unpaid domestic work than men, who spent only 86 minutes in 2024.