Time-use statistics provide a critical lens for understanding how people allocate their time across paid work, unpaid care, and other activities, offering insights into well-being that go beyond traditional economic indicators. These data are essential for monitoring SDG indicator 5.4.1 on unpaid care and domestic work and are increasingly relevant in Beyond GDP discussions.

Existing international standards and tools, developed under the UNSD time-use statistics programme and endorsed by the Statistical Commission, provide a strong foundation for this work. These include the International Classification of Activities for Time-Use Statistics (ICATUS), the Guide to Producing Statistics on Time Use, and the Minimum Harmonized Instrument (MHI), which together ensure comparable, high-quality data across countries. The consultancy will develop user-friendly training materials to support national statistical offices in applying these standards, operationalizing the MHI, and producing reliable and comparable time-use statistics.

The training materials will enhance capacities in understanding international standards, operationalizing the MHI, and linking ICATUS and MHI activity lists for calculating SDG Indicator 5.4.1. They will be designed for hybrid, in-person, and online workshops, as well as user–producer dialogues. This activity supports gender equality, human rights, disability inclusion, and the Leave No One Behind principle by generating disaggregated data that inform inclusive and evidence-based policies.

A total RPTC budget of US$20,000 is proposed to cover the consultancy fee for the development of these training materials, which will serve as a practical resource for statisticians