What Effects Do Macroeconomic Conditions Have on Families’ Time Together?

Abstract

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The great recession and unpaid work time in the United States – Does poverty matter?

“…Evaluating these changes in the context of the activities in which they took place, we find that between pre-recession and recession periods, the reduction in nonpoor women and men's unpaid work took place primarily in maintenance activities whereas the increase in poor men's unpaid work occurred primarily in routine activities and childcare (in other care, poor men decreased their time use), in line with findings from other studies (Morrill and Pabilonia 2012;Hartmann et al 2010). Hence, poor men increased their time spent on activities needed on a daily basis, whereas the reductions appear to have taken place in the maintenance activities which may be viewed as less urgent.…”

Who Does the Shopping? – German Timeuse Evidence, 1996–2009

“…Finally, a new strand of literature has started to examine the effects of the 2007 financial crisis on individuals' time allocation between paid and unpaid work (29,30). Focusing on the time use of married couples in the US, Berik and Kongar (31) find a convergence in market work for women and men because of an increase in mothers' paid work coupled with a decrease in paid work among fathers.…”

Time Use of Mothers and Fathers in Hard Times: The US Recession of 2007-09

“…9 We examine childcare as a general category and also, following Morrill and Pabilonia (2012), we differentiate between routine childcare and enriching childcare activities. Routine care involves attending to the basic needs of children such as feeding and bathing them, while enriching childcare entails any time spent on educational activities such as reading to/with children, helping them with homework, or attending social events with children.…”

“…Only a few studies have analyzed the recession's effect on time use and the relationship between unemployment, the post financial crisis recession, and unpaid work hours in the US economy (Aguiar, Hurst, and Karabarbounis 2011;Morrill and Pabilonia 2012). While the effect of macroeconomic conditions on individuals' allocation of time between unpaid work and leisure has been a longstanding question in the macroeconomic literature, its empirical testing for the US has become possible only recently, as time use data from the ATUS became available over a business cycle.…”

“…The emerging literature indicates that men and women allocated roughly equal proportions of their foregone hours to unpaid work and leisure during the post-2008 recession (Aguiar, Hurst, and Karabarbounis 2011). Unemployment contributed to greater sharing of childcare as fathers increased their childcare time while mothers did not reduce theirs (Morrill and Pabilonia 2012). There was also a narrowing of the gap in unpaid labor of mothers and fathers, which widened again after the end of the recession in June 2009 (Berik and Kongar 2011).…”