A joint model of household time use and task assignment for elderly couples with multiple constraints

PLoS One. 2021 Mar 11;16(3):e0247187. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247187. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Household time-use patterns are expected to reflect each household member's daily activity participation and duration with intra-household interactions constrained by multiple budgets. Among various activities, the allocated activity derived from undertaking a household task is studied relatively less in the literature. Who will take an allocated activity is a discrete choice problem of household task assignment, and once a household member is assigned with one household task, other members will have more time to do other activities. To better understand household time-use patterns affected by household task assignment, this paper proposed a joint household-level multiple discrete-continuous extreme value-multinomial logit (MDCEV-MNL) model with multiple constraints. The Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) method combined with the simulation-based maximum likelihood estimation method is proposed to estimate the proposed model. Based on the household activity-travel data from Beijing of China, the proposed model is customized to explore elderly couples' time-use patterns with intra-household interactions affected by household task assignment. Following the findings, policy implications are suggested to build an age-friendly society.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Beijing
  • China
  • Computer Simulation
  • Family Characteristics
  • Female
  • Household Work / standards*
  • Household Work / statistics & numerical data*
  • Household Work / trends*
  • Humans
  • Leisure Activities / psychology
  • Male
  • Models, Statistical
  • Spouses / psychology

Grants and funding

This study was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China. (grant number 2018YFB1601300). There was no additional external funding received for this study. KZ: Literature review, modeling, algorithms, manuscript writing. EY: Overall coordination, guidance on analysis and manuscript innovation. YZ: Data analysis, grammatically English correction.