Abstract

The Time Use Survey (EUT) conducted by the Statistical Institute of Catalonia (Idescat) represents a significant contribution to official time use statistics and the measurement of unpaid work. Within the European framework, Eurostat’s Harmonised European Time Use Surveys (HETUS) have enabled comparisons for decades on how populations allocate time between paid work, domestic tasks, care, and leisure. However, by design, these surveys focus on observable activities and durations, lacking specific categories to capture the cognitive or organisational dimension of domestic work—such as planning, anticipation, or coordination of tasks—a key aspect of ethically measuring gender inequalities.
This limitation hinders the measurement of a core component of gender inequality: mental load. The Catalonia EUT introduces a methodological innovation by incorporating a specific module on household and childcare task planning, identifying who assumes responsibility for organising activities like shopping, meal preparation, school schedules, or medical appointments, while ensuring transparent and reproducible data collection and processing procedures. This approach complements traditional time diaries and extends official statistics’ scope from “doing” to “organising”—a central dimension of unpaid work rarely measured explicitly in standard HETUS surveys.
Internationally, several countries and organisations explore mental load measurement through time use surveys or ad hoc studies, though none integrate it as a dedicated module in official HETUS-aligned frameworks. For exemple, the US American Time Use Survey (BLS, annual) measures time and well-being without mental load modules (OECD, 2017). UN Women advocates for better cognitive care measurement but relies on existing surveys (UN Women, 2015). Catalonia’s approach thus stands out for its integration into an official, HETUS-compatible survey with maintained quality standards and international comparability. Additionally, the EUT provides the only subnational European experience offering HETUS-aligned time use data disaggregated by territories within a region (Territorial Plan areas, Barcelona, and metropolitan rings).
Results highlight the added value of measuring planning. While women already devote more time to domestic and care work, organisation questions reveal an additional gap: a significantly higher proportion of women report being primarily responsible for planning key household tasks. This confirms inequality extends beyond hours to everyday responsibility assumption and management, with implications for stress, time availability, and labour market participation—providing gender-sensitive public policy evidence.
This study coordinates with the Time Use Initiative, managing a network of 50 cities and regions worldwide committed to time policies (Local and Regional TIME Network for Time Policies), enhancing transferability and effective social impact.
In summary, Catalonia demonstrates integrating mental load measurement into an official HETUS-compatible survey, enriching unpaid work analysis without sacrificing comparability or data ethics. The combination of conceptual innovation, European harmonisation, international coordination, and territorial disaggregation offers a replicable model for other statistical systems; findings provide useful evidence for time policy design across this global network.

Authors: Cristina Rovira (Idescat), Jonatan Jorba (Idescat) and Marta Junqué (Time Use Initiative)