What do you prefer for a relaxing time at home: reading, watching TV or listening to the radio?

ABSTRACT

This article studies the determinants of time spent by Spanish consumers on reading, watching TV and listening to the radio. To that end, we estimate a SUR (seemingly unrelated regressions) model with data from the Spanish Time Use Survey for 2009–2010. Our results show that being self-employed has a negative and significant effect on the time dedicated to reading and to watching TV; older individuals spend more time reading, and being male influences the time spent watching TV and listening to the radio, all in a statistically significant and positive way. Additionally, those with a higher level of education spend more time reading, while those with lower levels of education prefer to watch TV. Adults with better health spend less time on both reading and watching TV, and families with larger numbers of children up to age 5 tend to spend less time on all three of our at-home leisure activities. Finally, living in a larger city has a positive effect on the time dedicated to all three options.

KEYWORDS:

• Reading
• watching TV
• listening to the radio
• time uses
• SUR model

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D13
• J22

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ The possible conflict between work and family life has recently been analysed by Molina (2015) and, particularly, for the case of Spain, by Gimenez-Nadal, Molina, and Ortega (2012) and Garcia, Molina, and Montuenga (2010).

² Reading refers to the time dedicated to the reading of diaries, books and others. Watching TV refers to the time spent watching TV, DVDs and videos. Listening to the radio refers to the time dedicated to listening to the radio or recordings.