Gender,Work Time,and Care Responsibilities Among Faculty1

This study explores how faculty at one research‐intensive university spend their time on research, teaching, mentoring, and service, as well as housework, childcare, care for elders, and other long‐term care. Drawing on surveys and focus group interviews with faculty, the article examines how gender is related to time spent on the different components of faculty work, as well as on housework and care. Findings show that many faculty report working more than 60 hours a week, with substantial time on weekends devoted to work. Finding balance between different kinds of work (research, teaching, mentoring, and service) is as difficult as finding balance between work and personal life. The study further explores how gendered care giving, in particular being a mother to young children, is related to time spent on faculty work, controlling for partner employment and other factors. Men and women devote significantly different amounts of time to housework and care giving. While men and women faculty devote the same overall time to their employment each week, mothers of young children spend less time on research, the activity that counts most toward career advancement.     

Working at the Weekend: Fathers' Time with Family in the United Kingdom

Whereas most resident fathers are able to spend more time with their children on weekends than on weekdays, many fathers work on the weekends spending less time with their children on these days. There are conflicting findings about whether fathers are able to make up for lost weekend time on weekdays. Using unique features of the United Kingdom's National Survey of Time Use 2000 (UKTUS) I examine the impact of fathers' weekend work on the time fathers spend with their children, family, and partners (N = 595 fathers). I find that weekend work is common among fathers and is associated with less time with children, families, and partners. Fathers do not recover lost time with children on weekdays, largely because weekend work is a symptom of overwork. Findings also reveal that even if fathers had compensatory time, they are unlikely to recover lost time spent as a family or couple.     

Use of time and preferences for time allocation among urban,employed, married women

This study examines the relationship between employed wives' preferences for household production time, employment time, leisure, and their actual time use. A random sample of 235 employed, married women estimate their time use on an average weekday and weekend day in 13 activities and indicate their preferences for time in those activities. Hierarchical multiple regression procedures are used to examine the relationships between actual and preferred time use. Weekday employment time is not related to preferences for more or less time in household production but wives allocating more time to employment want to spend less time at that employment and more time in leisure. Weekend employment time is related to preferences for more time in leisure, child care, and other household work. Time spent performing household work is not related to preferences for more or less time in any activity except the desire for more leisure time on weekends.Ann Renigar Hiatt is Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Services, College of Education and Allied Professions at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223. Her research interests include employed women's time allocation, time pressures, and use of time management strategies. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.Deborah D. Godwin is Associate Professor in the Department of Housing and Consumer Economics at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Her research has focused on husbands' and wives' time allocation to household production, the effects of women's employment on family economic functioning, and family financial management. She received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Greensbore.     

Decomposing the increase in men’s time on childcare during the great recession

In this paper, I examine the time men spent on childcare during the recession of 2007–2009. The recession provides a sudden change in the employment opportunities of men relative to women in the United States. Using the American Time Use Survey and the linked Current Population Survey, I show that this lopsided shock to employment opportunities was accompanied by an increase in the average amount of time men spent on childcare. In particular, men’s average time on physical care for children increased during the recession; this is an element of childcare that men perform less than women. I decompose the total change in average time on childcare into behavioral, compositional, and between group change. A behavioral change among employed men accounted for the majority of the total increase in the average time spent on childcare; among men who are out of the labor force, the increase is entirely due to compositional changes.     

Gender, time use, and health

One of the continuing paradoxes facing social epidemiologists concerns sex differences in morbidity and mortality. Although women live longer than men, they apparently get sick more. We hypothesize that women's higher morbidity levels result from less paid work and lower wages combined with more hours spent in household labor, child care, and helping others, and fewer hours of leisure and sleep. Men and women hold different social roles; men hold most of the highly rewarding roles. We operationalize social roles as time commitments to various role-related activities. This approach provides interval-level measures such as time spent in caring for children instead of simple dichotomies such as parent/nonparent. We find that when gender differences in social roles are controlled, being male is associated with poorer health than being female. We conclude that if gender roles were more equal, women would experience better health than men, more consistent with their greater longevity.     

Do Traditional Fathers Always Work More? Gender Ideology,Race, and Parenthood

Research has shown that men who express traditional gender ideologies spend more time in paid work when they become fathers, whereas men who express egalitarian ideologies spend less time in paid work. This study extends previous research by examining racial differences among men. We drew on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N = 23,261) and found that fatherhood was associated with an increase in married White men's time spent in paid work. The increase was more than twice as strong for traditional White men than for egalitarian White men. In contrast, both egalitarian and traditional African American men did not work more when they became fathers. These findings suggest that African American men may express gender traditionalism but adopt more egalitarian work–family arrangements. This study also presents evidence of an interaction among race, class, and gender ideology that shapes fathers' time spent in paid work.     

Family Work Trends and Practices:1971 to 1991

Families are allocating their time in an increasingly market-oriented fashion, with a decreasing proportion of labor hours being devoted to unpaid work. This article analyzes two aspects of the changing allocation of time. First, using longitudinal data from 1971 to 1991, the nature of the changes in how the families have changed their allocation of time between market and non-market alternatives is examined. Next, how family types have changed their allocations over the same period are examined. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used for this analysis.Results of this research indicate that the proportion of time spent on household labor among men has increased over individual men's life cycles and between cross-sectional cohorts. However, women continue to devote more hours to household labor than men. The number of hours women spend in the labor force are increasing, but the number of hours women spend in the labor force is still less than the number of hours men spend in the labor force. While the families in the longitudinal analysis have been able to maintain fairly stable work and income patterns, the cross-sectional data indicate that families need to devote an increasing number of hours to the labor market to maintain economic stability.     

Enough Time for Housework? Low‐Wage Work and Desired Housework Time Adjustments

Although studies examine preferences for hours spent in paid employment, little attention has been given to preferences for hours spent in unpaid household labor. This study examines the extent to which women working in low‐paid retail jobs would prefer to spend more or less time on household work and how alignment between preferred and actual time on housework is related to characteristics of paid work. Using original survey data and company records on a sample of women working at a U.S. retail firm (N = 277), the authors found that mismatch between preferred and actual time on household work was common. Roughly 42% wanted more time on household work and 18% wanted less. Working multiple jobs, work schedule unpredictability, and nonstandard work timing contributed to wanting more time on housework. Findings add to understanding of how low‐wage, precarious employment shapes workers' ability to attend to necessary tasks of household management.     

Self‐Employment as a Strategy for Dealing with the Competing Demands of Work and Family? The Importance of Family/Lifestyle Motives

In this paper, we test the argument that self‐employment may be a strategy for dealing with competing demands of work and family. We do this by comparing work–family conflict experienced by self‐employed and employed men and women. By examining to what extent the self‐employed versus regularly employed value time for themselves and their family — i.e., whether they are driven by family/lifestyle motives in their working life — we examine whether self‐employment can help reduce work–family conflict among those guided by family/lifestyle motives. Using data from a 2011 Swedish survey of 2483 self‐employed and 2642 regularly employed, the analyses indicate that experiences of work–family conflict differ between self‐employed and employees. Self‐employed men and women, especially those with employees, generally experience more work–family conflict than do employees. However, self‐employment can sometimes be a strategy for dealing with competing demands of work and family life. The presence of family/lifestyle motives generally decreases the probability of experiencing work–family conflict, particularly among self‐employed women with employees.     

The Changing Demography of Grandparenthood

Demographic changes affect the time that individuals spend in different family roles. Mortality decline increases the time an individual can spend as a grandparent, but childlessness decreases the proportion of people who ever become grandparents, and fertility postponement delays when grandparenthood begins. This article examines changes in the length of grandparenthood at the population level and why it has changed in Canada over a 26‐year period. Using the Sullivan method, years spent as a grandparent are estimated by sex for 1985 and 2011. Results show that grandparenthood is coming significantly later to Canadians, in small part due to increased childlessness and in large part to fertility postponement of respondents and their children. The average length of grandparenthood decreased among women from 24.7 to 24.3 years but increased among men from 17.0 to 18.9 years. The changing timing and length of grandparenthood have implications for multigenerational relationships and intergenerational transfers.     

Are we investing less in the next generation? Historical trends in time spent caring for children

Historical and current data sets are used to trace the time married women and men spend caring for their own children on a daily basis. The data are also used to estimate the total time parents spend in raising two children to the age of 18. The analysis is restricted to primary child care time; i.e., the actual, direct administration of personal care, including physical care (feeding, bathing, dressing, putting to bed) and such other direct personal care as teaching, chauffering, supervising, counseling, managing, training, amusing, and entertaining. Secondary parental child care time is not studied. Although white married women spent about. 56 hours per day per child in primary child care in the 1924–1931 period, by 1981, the time had decreased to about 1.00 hour per day per child. Married men spent 0.25 hours per day per child in 1975, the first year for which national data exists. By 1981, this figure had increased to 0.33 hours per day per child. Raising two children to age 18 required about 5,789 hours of a white, employed, married woman's time and 14,053 hours of a white, unemployed, married woman's time in 1981. Husbands of white, employed married women spent about 1,500 more hours in raising two children to age 18 than the husbands of white, unemployed married women.His research interests include the economics of family time use, household production, consumption, and demand.Her research interests include household production, family structure and family well-being, and family policy.     

Single Motherhood,Living Arrangements,and Time With Children in Japan

The authors examined relationships between single parenthood and mothers' time with children in Japan. Using data from the 2011 National Survey of Households with Children (N = 1,926), they first demonstrate that time spent with children and the frequency of shared dinners are significantly lower for single mothers than for their married counterparts. For single mothers living alone, less time with children reflects long work hours and work‐related stress. Single mothers coresiding with parents spend less time with children and eat dinner together less frequently than either married mothers or their unmarried counterparts not living with parents, net of (grand)parental support, work hours, income, and stress. The findings suggest that rising divorce rates and associated growth in single‐mother families may have a detrimental impact on parents' time with children in Japan and that the relatively high prevalence of intergenerational coresidence among single mothers may do little to temper this impact.     

Parenthood,Gender and Work‐Family Time in the United States,Australia, Italy,France, and Denmark

Research has associated parenthood with greater daily time commitments for fathers and mothers than for childless men and women, and with deeper gendered division of labor in households. How do these outcomes vary across countries with different average employment hours, family and social policies, and cultural attitudes to family care provision? Using nationally representative time‐use data from the United States, Australia, Italy, France, and Denmark (N = 5,337), we compare the paid and unpaid work of childless partnered adults and parents of young children in each country. Couples were matched (except for the United States). We found parents have higher, less gender‐equal workloads than nonparents in all five countries, but overall time commitments and the difference by parenthood status were most pronounced in the United States and Australia.     

Does generosity beget generosity? The relationships between transfer receipt and formal and informal volunteering

This paper examines whether receipt of public or private assistance is associated with recipients’ own generosity in the form of formal and informal volunteering. Using matched data from the 2007–2011 American Time Use Survey and the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Current Population Survey, this paper finds that receipt of private assistance from friends and relatives is negatively associated with the time women spend caring for non-household adults and the time men spend caring for non-household children. Receipt of public assistance is found to be negatively associated with men’s care of non-household adults. No associations are found between either type of assistance and time spent volunteering for a formal organization.     

Adaptive Strategies,Gender Ideology,and Work‐Family Balance Among Dutch Dual Earners

Using questionnaire data on 149 Dutch dual‐earner couples with young children participating in the European Famwork study, we examine how adaptive strategies and gender ideology relate to parents’ perceived success in balancing work and family. Path analysis indicates that some adaptive strategies may harm individuals’ work‐family balance, particularly when they are made in the domain where the time budget is limited. In the need to succeed in multiple roles, however, endorsement of traits traditionally linked with the opposite gender, that is masculine traits for women and feminine traits for men, seems beneficial. We speculate that two underlying mechanisms — social pressure and time constraints — jointly operate in determining perceived success in balancing work and family.     

DOMESTIC WORK, FAMILY CHARACTERISTICS, AND EARNINGS:

Using the 1996 Indiana Quality of Employment Survey, we reexamine gender and class differences in the effects of domestic work and family characteristics on earnings. We expand upon Coverman's (1983) original model by including several new measures. We find that the gender gap in domestic work has narrowed considerably, not because men are doing more but because women are doing less than they were twenty years ago. Women's earnings suffer more than men's from time spent on domestic work and generally benefit more from partners' domestic help. Women's earnings are more advantaged than men's by having preschool children, and men's earnings are more advantaged when their partner works. We find significant class differences in the effects of domestic work between working-class and non-working class women and in the effects of family characteristics between working-class and non-working class men. Non-working class women's earnings suffer more from time they put into domestic work, but their earnings generally benefit more from partners' or outside domestic help. Working-class men's earnings are more advantaged by having school-age children and more disadvantaged by having progressive gender ideologies. Non-working class men's earnings benefit more when their partners hold a job but suffer more as their partners work more hours.     

How American Children Spend Their Time

The purpose of this article is to examine how American children under age 13 spend their time, sources of variation in time use, and associations with achievement and behavior. Data come from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results suggest that parents' characteristics and decisions regarding marriage, family size, and employment affect the time children spend in educational, structured, and family activities, which may affect their school achievement. Learning activities such as reading for pleasure are associated with higher achievement, as is structured time spent playing sports and in social activities. Family time spent at meals and time spent sleeping are linked to fewer behavior problems, as measured by the child's score on the Behavior Problems Index. The results support common language and myth about the optimal use of time for child development.     

Backup Parents,Playmates, Friends: Grandparents' Time With Grandchildren

Grandparents play varied roles in their grandchildren's lives. Prior work has focused mostly on historical trends in and implications of grandparent coresidence and has not considered more broadly how grandparents and grandchildren interact. Using time‐use diary data for 6,762 person‐years from the 1997 to 2007 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Survey, the authors examine patterns in the amount and activity composition of time American children spent with their grandparents, differentiated by family structure, adult employment, and child's age. Results showed that although only about 7% of children lived with their grandparents, many more children spent time with their grandparents: about 50% of young children, 35% of elementary‐age children, and 20% of teens spent at least some time with their grandparents in a typical week. This suggests that grandparents play a variety of roles in their grandchildren's lives, depending on the amount and kinds of support needed.     

Women,work, and family in the Czech Republic—and comparisons with the West

What are the work-family experiences of Czech women, and to what extent are there similarities and differences with women in the West? Drawing on a cross-national survey and other findings, this paper points out that unlike the extensive part-time employment of many Western European women, most Czech women in the post-Communist era have continued to combine full-time employment with family roles. Maternity and parental leaves, kindergartens, and other policies have been important supports. It is argued that employment and economic independence remain important to Czech women, and although gender differentiation in women's domestic activities and men's preponderance in upper-level jobs in the economy and government is recognized, Western attributions of patriarchy have been resisted. Since family life is highly valued, many have seen women as advantaged in their greater family involvement and integration of both family and employment roles. Rather than opposition between men and women, Czechs generally point to partnership and overall social equality. During Communism Czechs learned that ‘time at work’ does not equal productivity, and women practiced an informal flextime to aid work-family integration. This ‘self-management’ of work time and of work and family activities is cited as a component of Czech women‘s sense of efficacy and gender equality. An interesting question for the post-Communist success of Czech women and work organizations is whether women's interest in self-management will be met by the support of managers and of workplace cultures and structures.