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Title: Comparisons of At-Home and Breadwinner Parents' Time Use: What matters most, gender or jobs?
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2013
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Abstract: Explanations for gender difference often focus on relative differences in time and money connected to employment within couples and cultural (e.g. doing gender) arguments to pinpoint the mechanisms that lead to gender-based inequality. However, previous research indicates clear differences in how heterosexual couples allocate time to childcare, housework, and leisure, suggesting that time/money tradeoffs and cultural pressures may operate in different ways across different areas of time use. Further, research points to couples with atypical work/family allocations, like those with a stay-at-home father or breadwinner mother, as drivers of gender similarity or difference in some areas, finding that families with a breadwinner mother and at-home father are the most equal when it comes to childcare time, but the least equal when it comes to housework allocations. However, a rigorous examination of time use in these atypical families has not been conducted drawing on a population sample. We use integrated American Time Use Survey (ATUS) data and seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) analyses to extend previous research focused on pinpointing the mechanisms that underlie gender difference and investigate whether time in childcare, housework, leisure, exercise, and sleep differ among a nationally representative sample of at-home and breadwinner parents to better understand how very unequal employment and care obligations (primary parenting vs. breadwinning) and gender shape these time allocations. Overall, we find that mothers and fathers across employment conditions are more alike than different, suggesting that gender, not jobs, has a stronger influence on time use, even in couples with very unequal paid work commitments.
Url: https://workfamily.sas.upenn.edu/wfrn-repo/object/xf2ac1xk7py2776a
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Authors: Chesley, Noelle; Flood, Sarah
Publisher: Minnesota Population Center
Data Collections: IPUMS Time Use - ATUS
Topics: Family and Marriage, Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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