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The decline of the family meal is a popular concern in contemporary Western society. This article assesses how commensality patterns have evolved in Belgium over the last four decades and which factors have an impact on commensality. The study uses Belgian time-budget data from 1966 and 1999 to obtain an insight into the evolution of commensality patterns. Flemish time-use data from 2004 are used to determine the factors that affect commensality patterns. It is concluded that there has been a significant decrease in family commensality between 1966 and 1999, while eating has become more individualized during the same period. This holds for all days of the week and for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The data also revealed that a number of factors that are often assumed to entail the individualization of eating practices, such as the increased availability of products for self-catering, have little impact on commensality patterns in practice.The factor with the strongest impact on commensality patterns is living arrangements. People who live alone generally do not have anyone with whom to share their meals. Married and cohabiting couples, on the other hand, tend to eat together on a regular basis, while parents still share the majority of meal-times with their co-resident children.

The idea that family meal time is disappearing is gaining growing attention in Western societies. This article investigates to what extent family time has decreased and what place the family meal has within family time. Belgian time-budget data gathered in 1966 and 1999 were used to answer these research questions. Analyses show parents were spending less time together as a family and also on family meals, especially on working days. Nevertheless, the growing number of dual-earner families was not responsible for the decline in family meal time between 1966 and 1999.

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This study mapped the changes in the timing of working hours in Belgium as reported in workers' daily work schedules, obtained from the Belgian Time-Use Surveys of 1966 and 1999. A typology of working schedules was drawn up by means of a sequence analysis. This approach showed that work performed beyond the standard times, that is, in the evening, at night, or on weekends, did not grow in importance in the intervening years. In 1999, standard working hours clearly accounted for a larger share of the work schedules of the active population. Although the analyses did certainly not corroborate the often alleged trend towards a 24-hour society in Belgium, it could be shown that certain categories of the working population are more susceptible to flexible working hours than others