Elderly people and their out of home activities in time The international MOBILATE project offers the opportunity to study the temporal dimension of the out of home behaviour of elderly people. Working hours are the most structuring factors in the time structure of the whole society. This general structure creates problems in the traffic peaks. For most people of old age the work as structure of the time path has disappeared. Do they use this opportunity to avoid the traffic peaks? The figures and graphs show that they try to avoid the busy times in traffic. This is enforced by their endeavour to avoid problems and unsafe traffic situations. For young elderly people work is more structuring, but for the group as a whole is shopping the main activity in the morning and visiting friends and relatives and recreational activities the main motives in the afternoon. Visiting and recreation are most time consuming, but shopping is the most frequent motive for out of home activities. Analysis of time data shows clear differences between living locations as city or countryside, between gender and age groups. The overall temporal pattern, however, shows a rather similar image, even in so different countries. (Author/publisher)
Abstract