• About this study

Understanding participatory time for groups at risk of social exclusion

About the study

This study of social exclusion explores how much time people spend participating in certain activities such as sports, the arts, volunteering or social networking. In particular it examines two groups at risk of social exclusion: those who work at atypical times and older people.

• The first group (working atypical times) spent less time doing participatory activities (six hours 43 minutes per week for evening workers) than those working standard hours (over eight hours per week).
• The second group (older people) also faced barriers to particpatory activities spending, on average, eleven hours alone during weekdays (excluding sleep).

Policy Impact

The study notes that the Government promotes work as the best route to personal well-being, with worklessness going hand in hand with low income and social exclusion. However, it points out that working uncommon hours can also have implications for people's opportunities to engage and feel integrated in society.

The results also suggest that local government and charities need to recognise that social participation is important to improve people's quality of life.

Methodology

The research uses diary data from the UK Time Use Survey (UKTUS) to explore the time people spend on a range of social and civic activities. The UKTUS provides ideal quantitative 'fly on the wall' data for tracking when atypical workers worked and when they took part in particpatory activity. For older people, time spent social networking was explored using a mixture of descriptive and multivariate techniques.

Click here to read more about this study on the ESRC website.

Click here to read details about the study and summary findings

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