Description

ALONE reports whether the respondent is alone or with someone else during the activity.

Users who want more details about others' presence may refer to SPPART, HHADULT, ANIMAL, SHOPROF, WELLKNW, OTHERP, INFANT, COWORK, CLSFAM, CHILD, and UNKNWP. The relationship between who variables is documented here.

ALONE is only available if you select a hierarchical extract. If you request a hierarchical extract and plan to construct time use variables in your statistics package, this variable may be useful to you. Alternatively, you may use ALONE_ALT to construct a time use variable as part of this system.

Comparability

ALONE was created differently in some years. Users should take that into account in their analyses. This comparability documentation is adapted from the Oxford Harmonization files.

• 1965-66: If the respondents said they were alone in the two original "who with" variables, ALONE takes the value of 1. However, if both "who with" variables are alone and the main or secondary activity involves interaction - that is, care for babies, read to child, indoor games or instruction with child, or outdoor games or walks with child - then ALONE is coded as 0.

• 1975-76: While the original codebook indicates that a value of 0 is alone, no code 0 appears in the original data. Most -8 codes in the original data must indicate alone, though clearly people are not alone when interacting with other people.

• 1998-01: If the respondents indicated that they were alone in the "who with" variables, ALONE is coded as 1.

• 2003-present: If the respondents said they were alone in the "who with" variable, ALONE takes a value of 1.

Universe

Availability

• 1965, 1975, 1998, 2003-2012, 2018

Flags