Volume 35 - Article 25 | Pages 711–744  

Sequencing the real time of the elderly: Evidence from South Africa

By Erofili Grapsa, Dorrit Posel

Abstract

Background: Understanding how the elderly in developing countries spend their time has received little attention. Moreover, the potential of time use data to discern variation in activity patterns has not been fully realized by methods which use a mean added time approach.

Objective: To uncover patterns of time use among the elderly (60 years and older) in South Africa by applying an innovative methodology that incorporates the timing, duration, and frequency of activities in the analysis.

Methods: We use sequence analysis, which treats the daily series of activities of each individual as a sequence, and cluster analysis, to group these sequences into common clusters of time use behaviour. We then estimate multinomial logit regressions to identify the characteristics of the elderly which predict cluster membership.

Results: We find that the time use behaviour of the elderly in South Africa can be divided into five distinct clusters, according to the relative importance in their day of personal care, household maintenance, work, mass media, and social or cultural activities. In comparison to men, women are overrepresented in the cluster where household work dominates, while they are underrepresented in the cluster of the elderly who engage in production work. A range of other individual and household characteristics are also important in predicting cluster membership.

Contribution: Sequence and cluster analysis permit a nuanced examination of the differences and commonalities in time use patterns among the elderly in South Africa. There is considerable potential to extend these methods to other studies of time use behaviour.

Author's Affiliation

• Erofili Grapsa - Rhodes University, South Africa EMAIL
• Dorrit Posel - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa EMAIL

Most recent similar articles in Demographic Research

Tools for analysing fuzzy clusters of sequences data
Volume 51 - Article 16    | Keywords: fuzzy clustering, sequence analysis, silhouette coefficient, visualization, weighted gradient index plots

Transitions to adulthood in men and women in rural Malawi in the 21st century using sequence analysis: Some evidence of delay
Volume 51 - Article 14    | Keywords: Africa, Health and Demographic Surveillance System, longitudinal analysis, Malawi, sequence analysis, transition to adulthood

Women’s employment trajectories in a low-income setting: Stratification and change in Nepal
Volume 49 - Article 8    | Keywords: Nepal, sequence analysis, women's employment, work trajectory

Union formation and fertility amongst immigrants from Pakistan and their descendants in the United Kingdom: A multichannel sequence analysis
Volume 48 - Article 10    | Keywords: assimilation, fertility, life course, migrants, sequence analysis, union formation, United Kingdom

Multiple (il)legal pathways: The diversity of immigrants' legal trajectories in Belgium
Volume 47 - Article 10    | Keywords: Belgium, immigration, integration, legal status, population register, sequence analysis, trajectories