Using Media Simultaneously. Differences between Fulltime Working Women and Men in Rural and Urban Areas.

This paper examines differences in time use between fulltime working women and men between 25 and 65 years of age living in urban, suburban and rural areas. With respect to Georg Simmel's image of the "pace of life" we hypothesize that women and men living in urban, suburban and rural areas differ in their way of using their time spent on leisure, for example mass media use. In our analyses we focus on simultaneous use of time as one strategy to accelerate time use. Inhabitants of urban areas might choose within a greater amount of leisure activities than those of rural areas. Therefore we assume that the former use media to a greater extent simultaneously to other activities than those living in rural areas. To test our hypothesis we use time diary data of the German Time Use Survey 2001/02. The findings of our analyses partly support our hypothesis. When looking at women and men separately greater differences were found between women living in different living contexts than between men. Women in urban areas seem to use media simultaneously to the greatest extent. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]