When Home Becomes Work: Measuring Home-Based Work Measures in the 2004 ATUS and the May 2004 CPS Work Schedules Supplement

Sara Raley, University of Maryland
Vanessa Wight, University of Maryland

This paper provides a new measurement perspective on work at home using two nationally representative data collections derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS)—the 2004 May Work Schedules Supplement and the 2004 American Time Use Survey. The supplement provides survey-based assessments of home-based work, whereas the ATUS provides a sample of workdays on which we know not only the hours parents work for pay, but also where these hours were worked, and what activities filled nonwork time. We ask: How do measures of the incidence and duration of home-based work compare across the two surveys? Do the characteristics that predict home-based work differ between the datasets? Among those who complete both the supplement and the ATUS, how do their reports vary by the method of data collection (survey versus time-diary format)? Of those respondents who completed the ATUS, how is work at home associated with other time use patterns?