In the last years, one of the IRPPS research activities focuses on the gender allocation of time among Italian population. In the study, the Italian Time Use Survey has been utilised. The survey collects information on the characteristics of households and individuals (family type, number of children, age, education, employment status, working hours, and so on) through direct interviews. Then, each respondent filled out a 24-h diary, in which they recorded their activities, indicating the time spent on each of them by 10-min time periods.
Two main lines of research has been developed. The first analyses the time allocation of different population groups such as the young, the adults and the elderly. The latter focuses on the persistence of the gendered division of unpaid labour. One of the most fruitful areas of research investigates the relationships between partners, with the objective to specify both the factors responsible for the gender differences in childcare and housework activities and the mechanisms that, at the micro level, allow to overcome inequalities that arise within the couple.
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