How Friendship is coded

TIME USE
1

Hello!

I want to ask a few questions on how friendship is determined by the interviewer. My assumption is that when asked who was present for the activity, friendship is only reported if 1) the person is first described as a friend by the respondent, and 2) if the person is NOT a household member or other category (co-worker, housemate).

For instance, if someone said that the person they spend leisure time with was first reported as a friend, but the interviewer would later find that the person was actually a housemate, this would be coded as “Housemate” and not “friend”, correct?

Also, there is no way to determine if this was a single friend or many friends, correct?

2

In looking through the ATUS Questionnaire, the ATUS User Guide, and the ATUS Coding Rules, I found no clarification on how exactly friends are defined or how the interviewer handles any discrepancies or inconsistencies in how the respondent may refer to certain people. My suggestion would be to reach out to the ATUS team at BLS directly via their website. If you receive an answer from the ATUS team, please post an update here!