Social times, reproduction and social inequality at work : contrasts and comparative perspectives between countries

Production of INCASI Project H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015 GA 691004If the focus is placed specifically on the problem of work and family, the daily life of people and their use of time are a main problem. This time is expressed in both freely available time, which is related to activities, and time of the productive and reproductive sphere. This chapter considers work in a broad sense and takes into account the sexual division of labour. Specifically, this chapter will explore transformations in time use and social inequality in unpaid work. For this purpose, a comparative analysis of time-use surveys will be used, analysing the time spent, and the time dedicated to household chores in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Spain. From an analytical viewpoint, the analysis will place social reproduction at the centre of the socio-economic system, showing that the economic crisis has affected women and men differently, and that in both Europe and Latin America the family pattern is being replaced by a dominant family model of a male provider and a double presence of women. The large-scale incorporation of women into the labour market has emphasised the role that women assume in the domestic sphere perpetuating gender segregation in employment and in domestic and care work

Old Questions and New Evidence from Social Sequence Analysis

In what ways do dual-earner couples organize their workdays and how do they (de)synchronize their daily activities? Using a multichannel sequence analysis approach, the paper tackles these questions. We consider the couples' division of work-family activities in holistic terms by setting it within the context of everyday life, that is, the overall temporal pattern of combination of His and Her multiple activities. Our multichannel sequence analysis approach is based on a Lexicographic Index that seeks to overcome some optimal matching limits of the sequence analysis. The case-study concerns how Italian dual-earner couples organize their daily activities (sleep, personal care, work, moving, housework, free time), during a typical Monday to Friday work day, 7.00 am to 10.00 pm. The analysis, carried out using the data from the 2008 Italian Census on Time Use (the last one available), involves 873 couples where both partners filled the given diaries on the very same day. All the analyses confirm the idea that dual-earner couples package their life time mainly in accordance with their jobs and eventual children management. Moreover, the analyses show that this time packaging changes in relation to the level of education, social class and the occupational sector of the couple