The influence of work time adjustment on joint activities and the demand for child care

Abstract

In this paper we examine if partners in households coordinate their working times. Also we examine how this coordination influences the (in)formal demand for child care and the time spent on joint activities. The activities that we distinguish are the time that partners spent together, spent jointly on household tasks and spent jointly on child care. We find that partners de-synchronize their work times when there are children present in the household while they synchronize their work times when there are no children present in the household. Households where women are higher educated tend to synchronize there work times. Partners who synchronize their work times spent more joint hours on household tasks. Partners who de-synchronize their work times less spent more time together. We do not find a relation between work timing and the time that parents spent together caring for their children. The demand for (in)formal child care is affected by the coordination of work schedules by partners. Partners who de-synchronize their work times more, demand less (in)formal child care. Moreover, active work time desynchronization and the demand for child care appear to be substitutes