The survey will be conducted on a representative sample of 10,000 households at the national and regional level, including Chisinau and Balti. Interviewers with tablets will ask about the time spent on paid work, housework, child and family care, social life, entertainment and traveling. The full picture of Moldovans’ daily lives will be made public. The results of the survey will be publicly disseminated in June 2026.
“Understanding how people allocate their time – especially time free from paid work – is critical to informing appropriate evidence-based public policy decisions. This survey is in line with international recommendations and will be laid as an additional module within the traditional labor force survey,” said Oleg Kara, Director General of the NBS.
The Director General also announced that in addition to the Time Use survey, the NBS will conduct a simultaneous Child Occupation survey and two other pilot surveys: the European Health Integrated Survey (EHIS) and a survey on exposure to domestic violence.
UN Women’s representative in Moldova, Dominika Stojanosca, emphasized that the time use survey is “long-awaited and timely.” “The data collected will help the government to develop policies aimed at reducing gender inequalities that are evident everywhere at the global level. Moreover, this data is needed not only to adjust government policies but also to change people’s mindset. Domestic and care work should not be perceived as exclusively women’s work,” said the representative of the international organization.
The activities for the preparation, organization and implementation of the Time Use Survey into national practice are supported by the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) in Moldova and technical assistance from the Department of Statistics of the International Labour Organization.
In the period from June 24 to July 3, 2025, a series of trainings are planned for interviewers and key specialists from all regions of the country, who will be trained to collect data from households.
For the first time in Moldova, the Time Use Survey was conducted in 2011-2012 with the support of the UN Joint Project on Strengthening the National Statistical System.
