Time Use and Life Satisfaction within Couples: A Gender Analysis for Belgium

Abstract

This study looks at the time allocations of individuals with a focus on paid and unpaid work, its division within the households, as well as its link with life satisfaction. The analysis is performed for Belgium in 2016 using the MEqIn database, a database containing information on both partners in the household. Time use by men and women appears to be quite different.Men are found to be more active in the paid activities and women in the unpaid ones. The link between time use and life satisfaction appears to be different for each gender as well. As in previous studies, women are found to be happier when working part-time. However, the usual conclusion that they follow traditional gender norm is challenged as it appears that this result remains only when they also undertake the majority of the unpaid work. This supports the idea that women active on the paid labor market suffer from a double burden. We then look at the within household interdependencies in the time allocations and at the link these can have with the subjective well-being of both men and women. Doing so, it appears that men's behavior can be related to the gender-identity hypothesis, and more precisely to its bread-winner version, while women's behavior is closer to a egalitarian vision of the division of work. We further observe that those behaviors are softened by the presence of children.

How Career and Non-Work Goal Progress Affect Dual Earners’ Satisfaction: A Whole-Life Perspective

“…Women experienced more non-work and life satisfaction when their partner progressed in the non-work domain, while men experienced less life satisfaction when their partner progressed in the career domain. These differences may be linked to traditional gender norms, which persist in many countries, including Belgium (De Rock & Périlleux, 2021). Traditional gender norms describe men as being more involved in the work domain and women as taking up more family responsibilities (Meeussen et al, 2016).…”

“…The Flemish context is characterized by neotraditional gender norms. Although the labor market participation of women is high (i.e., around 80% in the past 10 years; Steunpunt Werk, 2023), men, on average, tend to divide their time in line with more traditional gender norms, whereas women’s behaviors reflect a more egalitarian approach—which often translates to a double burden of paid and unpaid work for women (De Rock & Périlleux, 2021).…”