The effects of the family work day on the family time

Laurent Lesnard, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE)

The rise of dual-earner couples reshapes the relations families used to have with work. The consequences for family time of this dual participation to the labour market has not received a lot of attention yet. The family time is derived from the `with whom' variable of the last two French time-use surveys (1985-86 and 1998-99): the three kinds of family time taken into account (conjugal time, father and mother time, and couple-children time) have considerably increased during the period studied. A classification of the family work days is built using Optimal Matching Analysis. The lack of synchronicity affects differently the different categories of family time: the more synchronous couples are, the more symmetrical family time is but the less are father and mother times. Consequently, desynchronicity can lead to a more egalitarian way of parenting. The correlation between the social position of couples and their synchronicity is further emphasized.