1932

Abstract

Research on time use has seen several major developments in recent years. These include the adoption of exciting new technologies (e.g., smartphones, wearable Global Positioning System devices) that track behavior in real time, as well as a growing international database—the Multinational Time Use Study—that has surpassed one million days’ worth of harmonized time-diary data. These developments are transforming our understanding of the social patterning of everyday behavior. This article provides updates about this area of work, including recent findings regarding foundational sociological issues such as trends in gendered divisions of household labor and over-time, cross-national aggregate estimates of time spent on paid work and leisure. We also highlight new approaches to the study of time use. This includes an overview of advances in the collection and analysis of time-stamped behavioral data, as well as a discussion of methodological advances in the analysis of the temporal sequential structure of everyday activities.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022416
2019-07-30
2024-04-20
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/soc/45/1/annurev-soc-073018-022416.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022416&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Abbott A, Tsay A. 2000. Sequence analysis and optimal matching methods in sociology: review and prospect. Sociol. Methods Res. 29:3–33
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Aguiar M, Hurst E. 2007. Measuring trends in leisure: the allocation of time over five decades. Q. J. Econ. 122:3969–1006
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Aisenbrey S, Fasang AE. 2010. New life for old ideas: the “second wave” of sequence analysis bringing the “course” back into the life course. Sociol. Methods Res. 38:420–62
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Allard MD, Bianchi SM, Stewart J, Wight VR 2007. Comparing childcare measures in the ATUS and earlier time-diary studies. Mon. Labor Rev. 130:27–36
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Altintas E, Sullivan O. 2016. Fifty years of change updated: cross-national gender convergence in housework. Demogr. Res. 35:455–70
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Altintas E, Sullivan O. 2017. Trends in fathers’ contribution to housework and childcare under different welfare policy regimes. Soc. Politics 24:81–108
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Anderson B, Brynin M, Gershuny J, Raban Y 2007. Information and Communication Technologies in Society London: Routledge
  8. Andorka R. 1987. Time budgets and their uses. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 13:149–64
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bauman AE, Bittman M, Gershuny J 2019. A short history of time-use research: implications for public health. BMC Public Health In press
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Bianchi SM, Milkie MA. 2010. Work and family research in the first decade of the 21st century. J. Marriage Fam. 72:705–25
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Bianchi SM, Milkie MA, Sayer LC, Robinson JP 2000. Is anyone doing the housework? Trends in the gender division of household labor. Soc. Forces 79:191–228
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Bianchi SM, Robinson JP, Milkie MA 2006. Changing Rhythms of American Family Life New York: Russell Sage
  13. Bianchi SM, Sayer LC, Milkie MA, Robinson JP 2012. Housework: Who did, does or will do it, and how much does it matter?. Soc. Forces 91:55–63
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Bittman M, Brown JE, Wajcman J 2009. The mobile phone, perpetual contact and time pressure. Work Employ. Soc. 23:673–91
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Bittman M, England P, Sayer L, Folbre N, Matheson G 2003. When does gender trump money? Bargaining and time in household work. Am. J. Sociol. 109:186–214
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Bittman M, Matheson G, Meagher G 1999. The changing boundary between home and market: Australian trends in outsourcing domestic labour. Work Employ. Soc. 13:249–73
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Bittman M, Wajcman J. 2000. The rush hour: the character of leisure time and gender equity. Soc. Forces 79:165–89
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Brines J. 1994. Economic dependency, gender, and the division of labor at home. Am. J. Sociol. 100:652–88
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Brzinsky-Fay C. 2014. Graphical representation of transitions and sequences. Advances in Sequence Analysis: Theory, Method, Applications P Blanchard, F Bhülmann, J Gauthier 265–84 New York: Springer
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Burda M, Hamermesh DS, Weil P 2013. Total work and gender: facts and possible explanations. J. Popul. Econ. 26:239–61
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Butts CT. 2008. A relational event framework for social action. Sociol. Methodol. 38:155–200
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Chau JY, Merom D, Grunseit A, Rissel C, Bauman AE, van der Ploeg HP 2012. Temporal trends in non-occupational sedentary behaviours from Australian Time Use Surveys 1992, 1997 and 2006. Int. J. Behav. Nutr. Phys. Activity 9:76
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Chenu A, Robinson JP. 2002. Synchronicity in the work schedules of working couples. Monthly Labor Rev 125:55–63
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Cooke LP, Baxter J. 2010. Families in international context: comparing institutional effects across Western societies. J. Marriage Fam. 75:516–36
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Coltrane S. 2000. Research on household labor: modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work. J. Marriage Fam. 62:1208–33
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Cornwell B. 2013. Switching dynamics and the stress process. Soc. Psychol. Q. 76:99–124
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Cornwell B. 2015. Social Sequence Analysis Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  28. Cornwell B, Warburton E. 2014. Work schedules and community ties. Work Occup 41:139–74
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Cotter D, Hermsen JM, Vanneman R 2011. The end of the gender revolution? Gender role attitudes from 1977 to 2008. Am. J. Sociol. 117:259–89
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Coverman S, Sheley JF. 1986. Change in men's housework and child care time, 1965–1975. J. Marriage Fam. 48:413–22
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Craig L, Mullan K. 2010. Parenthood, gender and work-family time in the United States, Australia, Italy, France and Denmark. J. Marriage Fam. 72:1344–61
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Craig L, Powell A, Smyth C 2014. Towards intensive parenting? Changes in the composition and determinants of mothers’ and fathers’ time with children, 1992–2006. Br. J. Sociol. 65:555–79
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Davis SN, Greenstein TN. 2004. Cross-national variations in the division of household labor. J. Marriage Fam. 66:1260–71
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Davis SN, Greenstein TN. 2013. Why study housework? Cleaning as a window into power in couples. J. Fam. Theory Rev. 5:63–71
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Dotti Sani GM, Treas J 2016. Educational gradients in parents’ child care time across countries, 1965–2012. J. Marriage Fam. 78:1083–96
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Dow GK, Juster FT. 1985. Goods, time, and well-being: the joint dependence problem. Time, Goods, and Well-Being FT Juster, FP Stafford 397–413 Ann Arbor, MI: Inst. Soc. Res.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Elzinga CH. 2003. Sequence similarity: a non-aligning technique. Sociol. Methods Res. 32:3–29
    [Google Scholar]
  38. England P. 2010. The gender revolution: uneven and stalled. Gender Soc 24:149–66
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Erlich A. 1987. Time allocation: focus personal care Rep., Househ. Res. Proj., TIS No. G87002, Unilever Res London:
  40. Eurostat 2008. Harmonised European Time Use Survey Guidelines 2008 Luxembourg: Eur. Stat. Off.
  41. Fisher K, Gershuny J. 2013. Multinational Time Use Study User's Guide and Documentation Oxford, UK: Cent. Time Use Res.
  42. Flood SM, Hill R, Genadek KD 2018. Daily temporal pathways: a latent class approach to time diary data. Soc. Indic. Res. 135:117–42
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Fuwa M, Cohen PN. 2007. Housework and social policy. Soc. Sci. Res. 36:512–30
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Gauthier AH, Smeeding TM, Furstenberg FF Jr 2004. Are parents investing less time in children? Trends in selected industrialized countries. Popul. Dev. Rev. 30:647–72
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Gauthier J, Widmer ED, Bucher P, Notredame C 2010. Multichannel sequence analysis applied to social science data. Sociol. Methodol. 40:1–38
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Geist C, Cohen PN. 2011. Headed towards equality? Housework change in comparative perspective. J. Marriage Fam. 73:832–44
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Gershuny J. 2000. Changing Times: Work and Leisure in Postindustrial Society Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  48. Gershuny J. 2005. Busyness as the badge of honor for the new superordinate working class. Soc. Res. 72:287–314
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Gershuny J. 2011. Time-use surveys and the measurement of national well-being Rep., Cent. for Time Use Res., Dep. Sociol., Univ Oxford, UK: https://www.timeuse.org/sites/ctur/files/public/ctur_report/4486/timeusesurveysandwellbein_tcm77-232153.pdf
  50. Gershuny J. 2019. Time and enjoyment: measuring national happiness. What We Really Do All Day: Insights from the Centre for Time Use Research J Gershuny, O Sullivan London: Penguin In press
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Gershuny J, Fisher K. 2017. L'évolution des usages du temps. Exploit, labeur, honneur, travail: une analyse international sur longue période. Futuribles 421:1–22
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Gershuny J, Godwin M, Jones S 1994. The domestic labor revolution: a process of lagged adaptation. The Social and Political Economy of the Household M Anderson, F Bechhofer, J Gershuny 151–97 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Gershuny J, Harms T. 2016. Housework now takes much less time: 85 years of U.S. rural women's time use. Soc. Forces 95:503–24
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Gershuny J, Harms T. 2019. Time and physical activity. What We Really Do All Day: Insights from the Centre for Time Use Research J Gershuny, O Sullivan London: Penguin In press
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Gershuny J, Robinson JP. 1988. Historical changes in the household division of labor. Demography 25:537–52
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Gerstel N, Clawson D. 2018. Control over time: employers, workers, and families shaping work schedules. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 44:77–97
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Glorieux I, Laurijssen I, Minnen J, van Tienoven TP 2010. In search of the harried leisure class in contemporary society: time-use surveys and patterns of leisure time consumption. J. Consum. Policy 33:163–81
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Goldschmidt-Clermont L. 1993. Monetary valuation of non-market productive time: methodological considerations. Rev. Income Wealth 39:419–33
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Gracia P, Kalmijn M. 2016. Parents’ family time and work schedules: the split‐shift schedule in Spain. J. Marriage Fam. 78:401–15
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Greenstein TN. 2000. Economic dependence, gender, and the division of labor in the home: a replication and extension. J. Marriage Fam. 62:322–35
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Gupta S. 2007. Autonomy, dependence or display? The relationship between married women's earnings and housework. J. Marriage Fam. 69:399–417
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Hochschild AR. 1997. The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work New York: Henry Holt & Co.
  63. Hochschild AR, Machung A. 1989. The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press
  64. Hofferth SL, Sandberg JF. 2001. How American children spend their time. J. Marriage Fam. 63:295–308
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Holloway S, Short S, Tamplin S 2002. Household Satellite Account (Experimental) Methodology London: Off. Natl. Stat.
  66. Hook JL. 2006. Care in context: men's unpaid work in 20 countries, 1965–2003. Am. Sociol. Rev. 71:639–60
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Hook JL. 2010. Gender inequality in the welfare state: sex segregation in housework, 1965–2003. Am. J. Sociol. 115:1480–523
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Isaacs K, McCurdy T, Glen G, Nysewander M, Errickson A et al. 2013. Statistical properties of longitudinal time-activity data for use in human exposure modeling. J. Expo. Sci. Environ. Epidemiol. 23:328–36
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Jacobs JA, Gerson K. 2005. The Time Divide: Work, Family and Gender Inequality Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
  70. Jarosz E. 2015. The duration and dynamics of leisure among the working population in Poland: a time-use approach. World Leisure J 58:44–59
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Juster FT, Stafford FP 1985. Time, Goods and Well-Being Ann Arbor, MI: Inst. Soc. Res.
  72. Kahneman D, Krueger AB, Schkade DA, Schwarz N, Stone AA 2004. A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: the day reconstruction method. Science 306:1776–80
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Kalleberg AL. 2009. Precarious work, insecure workers: employment relations in transition. Am. Sociol. Rev. 74:1–22
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Kan MY, Sullivan O, Gershuny J 2011. Gender convergence in domestic work: discerning the effect of interactional and institutional barriers from large-scale data. Sociology 45:234–51
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Killewald A. 2011. Opting out and buying out: wives’ earnings and housework time. J. Marriage Fam. 73:459–71
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Killewald A, Gough M. 2010. Money isn't everything: wives’ earnings and housework time. Soc. Sci. Res. 39:987–1003
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Kneeland H. 1929. Woman's economic contribution in the home. Ann. Am. Acad. Political Soc. Sci. 143:33–40
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Knudsen K, Waerness K. 2007. National context and spouses’ housework in 34 countries. Eur. Sociol. Rev. 24:97–113
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Knulst W, Kraaykamp G. 1997. The decline of reading: leisure reading trends in the Netherlands (1955–1995). Neth. J. Sociol. 33:130–50
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Krueger AB 2009. Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press/NBER
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Lachance-Grzela M, Bouchard G. 2010. Why do women do the lion's share of housework: a decade of research. Sex Roles 63:767–80
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Lamote de Grignon Pérez J, Gershuny J, Foster R, de Vos M 2018. Sleep differences in the UK between 1974 and 2015: insights from detailed time diaries. J. Sleep Res. 28:1e12753
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Lesnard L. 2008. Off-scheduling within dual-earner couples: an unequal and negative externality for family time. Am. J. Sociol. 114:447–90
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Lesnard L. 2010. Cost setting in optimal matching to uncover contemporaneous socio-temporal patterns. Sociol. Methods Res. 38:389–419
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Lesnard L, Kan MY. 2011. Investigating scheduling of work: a two‐stage optimal matching analysis of workdays and workweeks. J. R. Stat. Soc. A 174:349–68
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Lundberg GA, Keonavouski M, Mclnery MA 1934. Leisure: A Suburban Study New York: Columbia Univ. Press
  87. Mattingly MJ, Bianchi SM. 2003. Gender differences in the quantity and quality of free time: the U.S. experience. Soc. Forces 81:999–1029
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Meissner M, Humphries EM, Meis S, Scheu WJ 1977. No exit for wives. Can. Rev. Sociol. Anthropol. 12:424–39
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Mullan K. 2019. Technology in the daily lives of adults. What We Really Do All Day: Insights from the Centre for Time Use Research J Gershuny, O Sullivan London: Penguin In press
    [Google Scholar]
  90. Neilson J, Stanfors M. 2014. It's about time! Gender, parenthood, and household divisions of labor under different welfare regimes. J. Fam. Issues 35:1066–88
    [Google Scholar]
  91. O'Conghaile W, Köhler E. 1991. The Changing Use of Time: Report from an International Workshop Luxembourg: Off. Off. Publ. Eur. Communities
  92. Offer S, Schneider B. 2011. Revisiting the gender gap in time-use patterns: multitasking and well-being among mothers and fathers in dual-earner families. Am. Sociol. Rev. 76:809–33
    [Google Scholar]
  93. Pavalko EK. 2015. Comment: bridging the gap between life-course concepts and methods. Sociol. Methodol. 45:73–76
    [Google Scholar]
  94. Pember-Reeves M. 1913. Round About a Pound a Week London: Persephone
  95. Piccarreta R. 2017. Joint sequence analysis: association and clustering. Sociol. Methods Res. 46:252–87
    [Google Scholar]
  96. Pollock G. 2007. Holistic trajectories: a study of combined employment, housing and family careers by using multiple-sequence analysis. J. R. Stat. Soc. A 170:167–83
    [Google Scholar]
  97. Raley S, Bianchi SM, Wang W 2012. When do fathers care? Mothers’ economic contribution and fathers’ involvement in child care. Am. J. Sociol. 117:1422–59
    [Google Scholar]
  98. Reid MG. 1934. The Economics of Household Production New York: Wiley
  99. Robette N, Bry X, Lelièvre E 2015. A “global interdependence” approach to multidimensional sequence analysis. Sociol. Methodol. 45:1–44
    [Google Scholar]
  100. Robinson JP. 1988. Time diary evidence about the social psychology of everyday life. The Social Psychology of Time: New Perspectives JE McGrath 134–48 Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE
    [Google Scholar]
  101. Robinson JP, Converse P, Szalai A 1972. Everyday life in twelve countries. The Use of Time: Daily Activities of Urban and Suburban Populations in Twelve Countries A Szalai 113–44 The Hague, Neth: Mouton
    [Google Scholar]
  102. Robinson JP, Godbey G. 1999. Time for Life: The Surprising Ways That Americans Spend Their Time Philadelphia: Pa. State Univ. Press, 2nd ed..
  103. Robinson JP, Michelson W. 2010. Sleep as a victim of the “time crunch”—a multinational analysis. Electron. Int. J. Time Use Res. 7:73–92
    [Google Scholar]
  104. Rojas M, Veenhoven R. 2013. Contentment and affect in the estimation of happiness. Soc. Indicators Res. 110:415–31
    [Google Scholar]
  105. Rosa H. 2013. Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity New York: Columbia Univ. Press
  106. Sandberg JF, Hofferth SL. 2005. Changes in children's time with parents: a correction. Demography 42:391–95
    [Google Scholar]
  107. Sayer LC. 2005. Gender time and inequality: trends in women's and men's paid work, unpaid work and free time. Soc. Forces 48:285–303
    [Google Scholar]
  108. Sayer LC, Bianchi SM, Robinson JP 2004a. Are parents investing less in children? Trends in mothers’ and fathers’ time with children. Am. J. Sociol. 110:1–43
    [Google Scholar]
  109. Sayer LC, Gauthier AH, Furstenberg FF Jr 2004b. Educational differences in parents’ time with children: cross-national variations. J. Marriage Fam. 66:1152–69
    [Google Scholar]
  110. Schor J. 1992. The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure New York: Basic
  111. Sevilla A, Gimenez-Nadel J, Gershuny J 2012. Leisure inequality in the United States: 1965–2003. Demography 49:939–64
    [Google Scholar]
  112. Shelton BA. 1992. Women, Men, and Time: Gender Differences in Paid Work, Housework, and Leisure Westport, CT: Greenwood
  113. Sorokin PA, Berger CQ. 1939. Time Budgets of Human Behavior Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
  114. Stiglitz JE, Sen A, Fitoussi JP 2009. Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress Rep., Comm. Meas. Econ. Perform. Soc. Prog., OECD Paris:
  115. Su JH, Dunifon R. 2017. Nonstandard work schedules and private safety nets among working mothers. J. Marriage Fam. 79:597–613
    [Google Scholar]
  116. Sugie NF. 2018. Work as foraging: a smartphone study of job search and employment after prison. Am. J. Sociol. 123:1453–91
    [Google Scholar]
  117. Suh J, Folbre N. 2016. Valuing unpaid child care in the US: a prototype satellite account using the American Time Use Survey. Rev. Income Wealth 62:668–84
    [Google Scholar]
  118. Sullivan O. 1997. Time waits for no (wo)man: an investigation of the gendered experience of domestic time. Sociology 31:221–39
    [Google Scholar]
  119. Sullivan O. 2010. Changing differences by educational attainment in fathers’ domestic labour and child care. Sociology 44:716–33
    [Google Scholar]
  120. Sullivan O. 2011. An end to gender deviance neutralization through housework? A review and reassessment of the quantitative literature using insights from the qualitative literature. J. Fam. Theory Rev. 3:1–13
    [Google Scholar]
  121. Sullivan O, Billari FC, Altintas E 2014. Fathers’ changing contributions to child care and domestic work in very low fertility countries: the effect of education. J. Fam. Issues 35:1048–65
    [Google Scholar]
  122. Sullivan O, Gershuny J. 2013. Domestic outsourcing and multitasking: How much do they really contribute?. Soc. Sci. Res. 42:1311–24
    [Google Scholar]
  123. Sullivan O, Gershuny J. 2018. Speed-up society? Evidence from the UK 2000 and 2015 time use diary surveys. Sociology 52:20–38
    [Google Scholar]
  124. Sullivan O, Gershuny J, Robinson JP 2018. Stalled or uneven gender revolution? A long-term processual framework for understanding why change is slow. J. Fam. Theory Rev. 10:263–79
    [Google Scholar]
  125. Sullivan O, Katz-Gerro T. 2007. The omnivorousness thesis revisited: voracious cultural consumers. Eur. Sociol. Rev. 23:123–37
    [Google Scholar]
  126. Szalai A 1972. The Use of Time: Daily Activities of Urban and Suburban Populations in Twelve Countries The Hague, Neth: Mouton
  127. Thomas E, Harms T, Milton K, Kelly P, Doherty A et al. 2016. Reconstructing time use to understand human behaviour: combining accelerometry, wearable cameras, diaries and interviews. Int. J. Behav. Med. 23:235–37
    [Google Scholar]
  128. Treas J, Lui J. 2013. Studying housework across nations. J. Fam. Theory Rev. 5:135–49
    [Google Scholar]
  129. Vagni G, Cornwell B. 2018. Patterns of everyday activities across social contexts. PNAS 115:6183–88
    [Google Scholar]
  130. van Praag BMS, Ferrer-i-Carbonell A 2004. Happiness Quantified: A Satisfaction Calculus Approach Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
  131. Voicu M, Voicu B, Strapcov K 2008. Housework and gender equality in European countries. Eur. Sociol. Rev. 25:365–77
    [Google Scholar]
  132. Walker KE. 1969. Homemaking still takes time. J. Home Econ. 61:621–24
    [Google Scholar]
  133. Walker KE, Woods M. 1976. Time Use: A Measure of Household Production of Family Goods and Services Washington, DC: Am. Home Econ. Assoc.
  134. Wikipedia 2018. Internet of things. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_things
    [Google Scholar]
  135. Webber D, Payne CS. 2016. Household satellite accounts: 2005 to 2014 Rep., UK Off. Natl. Stat London:
  136. Young M, Wilmott P. 1974. The Symmetrical Family London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
  137. Zick CD, Stevens RB. 2010. Trends in Americans’ food-related time use: 1975–2006. Public Health Nutr 13:1064–72
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022416
Loading
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-soc-073018-022416
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error