Abstract:

Family is an important context of individuals' everyday life. Solo and joint activity participation of family members is strongly affected by spatiotemporal constraints and resources. An extensive literature has focused on intra-household interaction and its impacts on households' daily activity patterns, but most studies are limited to aggregated time use and activity participation, and implicitly examine the interaction between family members. Using one-week GPS-based activity-travel diary dataset of three families in the Shangdi-Qinghe area of Beijing, this study applied the concept of project context in time geography to extend the study of household task division to a one-week period, to describe the characteristics and understand the strategies of household task division in suburban families. Spatiotemporal paths were used to describe and analyze solo and joint activity participation of family members. We found that working status, age of children, presence of extended family members, and ownership of private cars have complicated impacts on the allocation of household tasks, resulting in different patterns of allocation of household responsibility among family members. In this process, the dynamic transformation of constraints and resources reflects the construction and reconstruction of family local order, and routine-forming and routine-changing of individual behavior. To conclude, the introduction of family project helps to explicitly understand tasks and constraints of family members of suburban residents, and to provide sophisticated and nuanced planning and services.

Key words: household task division, project context, time geography, weekly activities, suburban residents, Beijing