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The Time-Crunch Paradox
Abstract and Figures
Previous research has shown little difference in the average leisure time of men and women. This finding is a challenge to
the second shift argument, which suggests that increases in female labor market hours have not been compensated by equal decreases in household
labor. This paper presents time-use and leisure satisfaction data for a variety of western European countries, and shows that
accounting for socio-economic factors that differ between men and women is vital for understanding gender differences. We
find that working mothers have leisure levels that are much lower than those of working fathers and singles. Working mothers
are also most likely to report the least satisfaction with free time. Finding that time stress and leisure time are positively
correlated within socio-demographic groups suggests that the second shift argument is still valid, and that feelings of time stress are indeed associated with the lack of leisure time.
Keywords
Second shift
–Work-life balance–Time use–Leisure satisfaction
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... Given that the variables Commuting and intermediate trips and Bulk commuting include non-commuting activities while commuting to/from work, we follow prior research (Aguiar & Hurst, 2007Guryan et al., 2008;Gimenez-Nadal & Sevilla, 2011, 2012 and compute the total time workers spend in intermediate activities in the following categories: paid work, leisure, childcare, unpaid work, purchasing products, using services, and personal care. ...
Recent analyses have shown that commutes to and from work are not symmetric, suggesting that intermediate activities are at the root of the asymmetries. However, to model how these activities accumulate and interact within trips to and from work is a methodologically unexplored issue. We analyze the intermediate activities done while commuting, using data from the American Time Use Survey for the period 2003–2019. We show that commuting as defined in Time Use Surveys is underestimated, with significant differences that depend on whether intermediate activities are considered. Such differences are especially important in commuting from work to home and reveal gender differences. Our results contribute to the analysis of commuting behavior by proposing new identification strategies based on intermediate non-trip episodes, and by showing how commuting interacts with other non-commuting activities. We also explore intermediate episodes during commuting, which may partially explain gender differences in commuting time.
... To study the impact of role obligations, people's life stages and situations are often considered. Workers, women, parents with young children and the higher-educated have greater role demands and experience more time pressure (e.g., Gimenez-Nadal & Sevilla-Sanz, 2011;Mattingly & Sayer, 2006;Roxburgh, 2002). The ages of 24 to 50, when responsibilities, ambitions and obligations are concentrated, is associated with high levels of time pressure. ...
... When challenged by lockdowns, such as the one caused by COVID-19, implying an increase in teleworking for many workers, and thus more time in paid work in company with the spouse/partner and the children, and less time in the presence of others (both family and non-family members), men in both the UK and the US would reduce their experienced utility during paid work time, while women would increase theirs. It is also interesting that women in the UK report higher levels of experienced utility when paid work is done in the presence of children, which may be a consequence of the "double burden", or second shift, that they face -especially for those women who work full-time and have children (Gimenez-Nadal & Sevilla, 2011). If those women are able to take care of their children while they are working -which would obviously be the case in a 'lockdown' situation -the difficulties in balancing work and household responsibilities would be reduced, which would clearly improve women's well-being. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic has confined millions in their homes, an unprecedented opportunity to spend more time together with family members. This paper explores subjective well-being in the uses of time for US and UK workers, differentiating between solo activities and activities done with family members, at home and outside the home. Using American and British time use surveys, we compute the instant utility associated with paid work, unpaid work, leisure, and childcare activities. OLS regressions on both men and women show that workers prefer joint leisure to solo leisure, and that significant differences exist for solo and joint market work and housework, between the sexes. Despite that, the effect magnitudes are relatively low. Furthermore, we simulate a strict lockdown situation by replacing where and with whom worker episodes would be, based on mid-2020 strict confinements. Results suggest diverging effects, since more time with the spouse/partner and children, and less time with others, seems to increase the experienced wellbeing of women, compared to that of men. The simulation exercise also reveals asymmetric effects in the US and in the UK. The conclusions of this paper may help in assessing the psychological consequences of COVID-19 lockdowns, beyond the negative economic and labour market consequences.
... Unequal sharing of household responsibilities may impose an extra burden on working mothers with children (Gimenez-Nadal and Sevilla, 2011;Gimenez-Nadal & Molina, 2016), and may lead to women having more difficulty than men in accessing certain jobs, developing their careers, or gaining promotion to decision-making positions. This may add to the so-called "glass ceiling" phenomenon, that attributes to employer discrimination the fact that fewer women are found in top positions. ...
This paper explores the gender gap in time allocation in European countries, offering a comparison of the 2000s and the 2010s, along with an explanation of the documented gender gaps, based on social norms and institutional factors. The results show that the gender gap in both paid and unpaid work has decreased in most countries, but with a significant level of cross-country heterogeneity in the size of the gender gaps. More traditional social norms are related to greater gender inequalities in paid and unpaid work, while countries with better family-friendly policies and a greater representation of women in politics and in the labour market exhibit smaller gender inequalities. This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of gender gaps in Europe, and attempts to monitor the progress towards the elimination of gender inequalities. Despite that some degree of gender convergence in paid and unpaid work has taken place, there remain inequalities in the distribution of labour in European countries, and possible solutions may be related to social norms and family-friendly policies.
... There is strong evidence that long work hours are associated with reporting high levels of time pressure overall, at work and at home (Craig and Brown, 2017;Gimenez-Nadal and Sevilla-Sanz, 2011;Rose et al., 2011;Zuzanek, 2004). Longitudinal evidence from Canada suggests that one way of adapting to the time pressure associated with employment is for mothers to reduce their hours to part time (Laurijssen and Glorieux, 2013). ...
The associations between time pressure and health are typically conceptualised and examined as unidirectional. This study examined the reciprocal relationships between time pressure and mental and physical health amongst working mothers of preschool children; a high-risk group for feeling time pressured. Using 5 waves of a panel study of Australian mothers when their children were aged 0–4 (n = 3878) and cross-lagged structural equation models, we find strong significant negative reciprocal associations between time pressure and mental and physical health, although these reciprocal associations were stronger and more consistent over time for mental health. Our results indicate that physical health takes a couple of years to deteriorate to a point where the reciprocal effects with time pressure become apparent, but for mental health the reciprocal effects are immediate, present at all time points and consistently strong. Findings suggest there are significant reciprocal health consequences of the time pressure experienced by working mothers and government policy encouraging mothers back into the workforce without adequate supports may be harmful for health.
Evidence shows that working time mismatch, i.e. the difference between actual and desired working hours, is negatively related to employees’ job satisfaction. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we examine the potential moderating effect of working time autonomy on this relation and we also consider the corresponding role of gender. First, individual fixed effects panel estimations reaffirm both the negative link of working hours mismatch and the positive relation of working time autonomy to employees’ job satisfaction. Second, our results show a positive moderating relation of working time autonomy on the link between mismatch and job satisfaction. Third, our analyses hint at gender-specific differences: particularly women seem to benefit from the moderation role of working time autonomy.
This study aims to find out gender differences in leisure by examining the relationship between time and time use satisfaction(TUS) for each leisure type. As a result of analysing the Korean Time Use Survey, sports/leports and rest for men and hobbies and leisure learning for women showed a positive correlation with TUS, and for women, the more diverse the leisure types, the higher the TUS. I found that the gender norms imposed on women reduced their leisure time as well as their satisfaction, and that women’s labour market participation significantly constrained the quantity and quality of leisure compared to men. Gender differences in leisure are explained by resource availability, and women's leisure activities are more influenced by time resources and men’s financial resources. The nonlinear relationship between leisure repertoire or time and satisfaction shows gender differences in the combination of leisure diversity and time that increase the positive influence of leisure.
Studies which focused on relations between the perception of leisure and well-being concepts are observed frequently in literature. Studies that measure the relationship between “life satisfaction” and “leisure satisfaction” concepts are prominent within these studies. The aim of this study was to get a cumulative result by integrating the findings of the studies examining the same concepts through meta-analysis. For this purpose, academic studies published between 1999 and 2019 were screened and included from several databases. As a result, 21 studies were found fulfilling the inclusion criterion, set by the researchers, in order to retrieve studies presenting a correlation coefficient between variables “life satisfaction” and “leisure satisfaction”. This search resulted with a sample size of 83,632. The overall sample consisted of women, disabled individuals, residents of a defined district, university students, immigrants, and adults from various countries. Studies were analyzed by the free trial version of Comprehensive Meta-Analysis Software 2.0 (CMA 2.0). Findings indicated that leisure satisfaction and life satisfaction showed a positive relationship with a medium level of effect size. Future researchers who will address these concepts in their studies would benefit from conducting moderating analyses to explore how concepts in issue vary depending on the characteristics of the study, such as the sample characteristics.
One year after the European work–life balance directive, which recognises the need for work–family policy support, measures to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic began shaping parents’ work–life balance in significant ways. Academically, we are challenged to explore whether existing theoretical frameworks hold in this new environment with combined old and new policy frameworks. We are also challenged to understand the nuanced ways in which the first lockdown affects the combination of paid work and care. We address both of these issues, providing a cross-sectional comparative analysis of highly educated mothers’ perceptions of work–life balance during the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland and the Netherlands. Our findings show that highly educated Finnish mothers have more difficulty combining work and care during the first lockdown than Dutch mothers. The absence of state-provided care during the lockdown creates greater difficulty for full-time working Finnish mothers in a dual-earner/state-carer system than an absence of such care in the Dutch one-and-a-half earner system, where most mothers work part time. Further analyses suggest variation in part-time and (nearly) full-time hours mitigates the work–life balance experiences of highly educated Dutch mothers. Additional factors explaining cross-country variation or similarities include the presence of young children and the presence of a partner. We discuss these findings in light of current theoretical frameworks and highlight avenues for future research.
If the minimal nonpoor level of consumption requires both money and household production, then the official poverty standards do not correctly measure household needs. Any income-support program that corrects for money differences but not for time differences across households will discriminate against households with only one adult. Furthermore, such programs will provide financial incentives for households to form in certain ways. This paper sets up a two-dimensional poverty definition and then shows how this standard can be used to define voluntary versus involuntary poverty.
The barebones model, 668. — What role for goods? 669. — The complexity of time-related decisions, 670. — Externalities and
schedules, 671. — Inefficient allocations, 672. — Valuing time allocations, 673.
This paper demonstrates that skill mismatches matter for overall job satisfaction. The same is valid for satisfaction with regard to certain job domains such as pay, security, type of work and number of hours of work.
Recent research in Australia and overseas has suggested that we are witnessing a convergence of men's and women's time on domestic labour activities. But there is disagreement about whether this is due to women reducing their time on housework or men increasing their time on housework. This article addresses these issues using national survey data collected in Australia in 1986, 1993 and 1997. The results show some changes in the proportional responsibilities of men and women in the home with men reporting a greater share of traditional indoor activities. But overall both men and women are spending less time on housework. In particular, women's time on housework has declined by six hours per week since 1986. Hence, while the gender gap between men's and women's involvement in the home is getting smaller, it is not the result of men increasing their share of the load, but is due to the large decline in women's time spent on domestic labour. There is also evidence of change in the relationship between paid and unpaid work for women. Women's hours of paid labour had a greater impact on their involvement in domestic labour in 1997 compared to a decade earlier. The article concludes that women's increased labour force involvement in combination with changing patterns and styles of consumption is leading to some changes in the gender division of household labour, but not in the direction anticipated by earlier commentators on the domestic division of labour.