Spending time together: the impact of children on couples’ leisure synchronization

Abstract

The presence of children may oblige parents to desynchronize their schedules in order both to minimize childcare expenses and to become more efficient in their domestic tasks. This disconnection between the father's and the mother's schedules may be undesired as such, and may represent an additional component in the overall cost of children as traditionally considered. This article analyzes the impact of children on their parents' schedules, using the French time use survey data (INSEE 1998(INSEE -1999. The comparison of female and male schedules makes it possible to measure the leisure synchronization of dual-earner couples. We show that the presence of children within a household significantly reduces joint leisure time, and the more so if they are young. Parental schedule adjustments are severely limited by work constraints. The parents' difficulties in coordinating their schedules in order to spend time together is expressed as a deprivation of leisure which is larger for joint than for individual time. Finally, for couples with children, greater housework synchronization does not free up enough time to maintain joint leisure time.

Time for Each Other: Work and Family Constraints Among Couples

“…Both husbands’ and wives’ employment—especially long work hours—are negatively associated with marital interaction (e.g., Amato et al, 2007; Booth, Johnson, White, & Edwards, 1984; Roeters & Treas, 2011; White, 1983; but see Roeters & Treas, 2011). From the time use literature we know that individuals in dual-earner couples spend less time with their spouse than individuals in single-earner couples (Kingston & Nock, 1987; Presser, 2000; Voorpostel et al, 2009) as do individuals in couples in which one member works on the interview (i.e., diary) day (Barnet-Verzat et al, 2010; Dew, 2009; Glorieux, Minnen, & van Tienoven, 2011; Polivka, 2008; Wight et al, 2008) and in couples with large differences in paid work hours (Mansour & McKinnish, 2014). For example, Kingston and Nock (1987) drew on a small sample of couples from 1981 and showed that dual-earner couples spend 30 minutes less in total spousal time than single-earner couples.…”

“…Evidence suggests that time diary data are a better mechanism for capturing information on time spent with a spouse (Hamermesh, 2002, 2005), yet only a limited body of research has used this type of data to examine marital interaction. Previous research on couples’ shared time using time diary data has investigated leisure activities (Barnet-Verzat, Pailhé, & Solaz, 2010; Voorpostel, van der Lippe, & Gershuny, 2009), time spent alone with a spouse in any kind of activity (Dew, 2009), and total shared time as well as shared time in different types of activities (Kingston & Nock, 1987; Mansour & McKinnish, 2014). On the basis of our review of the literature, only two studies—Wight et al (2008) and Bianchi et al (2006)—have investigated both total time spent with a spouse and time alone with a spouse.…”

“…We build on a somewhat dated (Kingston & Nock, 1987) and limited set of knowledge about couples’ shared time (Barnet-Verzat et al, 2010; Bianchi et al, 2006; Dew, 2009; Mansour & McKinnish, 2014; Voorpostel et al, 2009; Wight et al, 2008) by bringing recent evidence from a large, nationally representative data set and by examining couples’ time spent alone together and their time spent together overall. Given the relevance of both work and family constraints in shaping time pressures and the competition between work and family in individuals’ daily lives, we investigated variation in couples’ shared time by work and life stage.…”

Gender Differences in Time Use over the Life Course in France, Italy, Sweden, and the US

“…The data we use do not allow us to check this explanation, as individuals and not couples are interviewed, except in France. But Daniel S. Hamermesh (2002), using British data, andChristine Barnet-Verzat, Ariane Pailhé, andAnne Solaz (2010) using French data, found that the leisure time spent Note: ***, **, and * indicate statistical significance at the 1, 5, and 10 percent levels, respectively.…”

Couple Time and Partnership Quality: an Empirical Assessment using Diary Data

“…Time-use use diaries essentially have so far, for the most part, provided information about what individuals are doing (activities) and only subsequently with whom (Barnet-Verzat, Pailhé, & Solaz, 2011;Cardoso, Fontainha, & Monfardini, 2010;Folbre et al, 2005). The with whom information has been slightly more often used to study time with children (Wight, Raley, & Bianchi, 2008).…”