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Title: Adjusting to Loss: Widow Time

Citation Type: Working Paper

Publication Year: 2020

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Abstract: By age 77 a plurality of American women are widows. Comparing older (ages 70+) married women to widows in the American Time Use Survey 2003-18 and linking the data to the Current Population Survey allow inferring the short- and longer-term effects of an arguably exogenous shock—husband’s death—and measuring the paths of adjustment to it. Widows differ from otherwise similar married women, and especially from married women with working husbands, by cutting back on home production, especially food preparation and housework, mostly by engaging in less of it each day, not doing it less frequently. British, French, German and Italian widows behave similarly. Widows are alone during most of the time they had spent with their spouses, with only a small increase in time with friends and relatives (except shortly after becoming widowed). They feel less time pressure than married women but are less satisfied with their lives. Most of the adjustment of time use in response to widowhood occurs within one year of the husband’s death.

Url: http://conference.iza.org/conference_files/UniDuisburg_2020/hamermesh_d122.pdf

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Authors: Hamermesh, Daniel S.

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Pages: 1-43

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Data Collections: IPUMS Time Use - ATUS

Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Other, Work, Family, and Time

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