Life-cycle variations in across-the-week allocation of time to selected daily activities.

Abstract In this paper, the relationships between three major concepts are examined: life-cycle, daily uses of time, and weekly rhythms of everyday life. Using data drawn from the 1986 General Social Survey (Canada), five life-cycle groupings are compared on the time each devotes to selected activities on each day of the week. Activities examined included work, domestic work, personal needs, and discretionary (leisure) time. Several significant differences are found between the various life-cycle groupings which appear to be attributable to situational circumstances associated with gender, marital status, employment status, and the presence of young children at home. The findings reported in the article point to the need to better understand the relationship between life-cycle and the weekly distribution of time.