Time use reflects how gender roles attributed to women and men, girls and boys, shape the division of labour
within a household. Social norms define certain activities as more feminine or more masculine than others.
Time use analyses have been increasingly related to unpaid care and gender inequality. The Convention for
the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action urged States to
assess the value of unremunerated work and highlighted the importance of tackling unequal distribution of
unpaid work between men and women. Over the past 20 years, time use surveys have been initiated in many
developed and developing countries, such as Brazil and South Africa.1
However, one of the challenges has been to translate and transfer time use data into policy making on gender equality. This Technical Note aims to provide guidelines on how time use surveys could be used for transformative policies.