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

Molina, Jose Alberto and Campaña, Juan Carlos and Ortega, Raquel (2015): What do you prefer for a relaxing and cultural time at home: Reading, watching TV, or listening to the radio?

Abstract

This paper studies the determinants of time spent by Spanish consumers on reading, watching TV, and listening to the radio, by estimating a SUR model with data from the Spanish Time Use Survey for 2009-2010. The existing literature on the consumption of cultural goods has, so far, failed to address the determinants of the amount of time adults spend at home interacting with cultural goods. We find that age has a positive influence on the time dedicated to reading, while the opposite occurs with time spent watching TV. Men spend more time than women watching television and listening to the radio, while those in our sample with a higher level of education spend more time reading. Individuals with a lower level of education spend more time watching television. The more children there are in the family, the less time is spent on all three options, but this negative effect diminishes as the children grow older. Finally, living in a larger city has a positive effect on the time dedicated to all three of our cultural options.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Reading, Watching TV, Listening to the radio, Time uses at home
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics > D12 - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor > J22 - Time Allocation and Labor Supply; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology > Z11 - Economics of the Arts and Literature

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