Little is known about couples’ shared time and how actual time spent together is associated with well-being. In this study, the authors investigated how work and family demands are related to couples’ shared time (total and exclusive) and individual well-being (happiness, meaningfulness, and stress) when with one's spouse. They used individual-level data from the 2003–2010 American Time Use Survey (N = 46,883), including the 2010 Well-Being Module. The results indicated that individuals in full-time working dual-earner couples spend similar amounts of time together as individuals in traditional breadwinner–homemaker arrangements on weekdays after accounting for daily work demands. The findings also show that parents share significantly less total and exclusive spousal time together than nonparents, though there is considerable variation among parents by age of the youngest child. Of significance is that individuals experience greater happiness and meaning and less stress during time spent with a spouse opposed to time spent apart.
Despite major demographic changes over the past 50 years and strong evidence that time spent with a spouse is important for marriages, we know very little about how time with a spouse has changed—or not—in the United States. Using time diary data from 1965–2012, we examine trends in couples’ shared time in the United States during a period of major changes in American marriages and families. We find that couples without children spent more total time together and time alone together n 2012 than they did in 1965, with total time and time alone together both peaking in 1975. For parents, time spent together increased between 1965 and 2012, most dramatically for time spent with a spouse and children. Decomposition analyses show that changes in behavior rather than changing demographics explain these trends, and we find that the increases in couples’ shared time are primarily concentrated in leisure activities.
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