Working out Family Life: The Influence of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Work Demands on the Frequency of Child-Related Care and Leisure Activities

Anne Roeters, Utrecht University
Tanja Van der Lippe, Utrecht University
Esther Kluwer, Utrecht University
Werner Raub, Utrecht University

While children are highly valued in contemporary society, the high number of dual-earner families and increasing work demands exert pressure on the time that parents can spend with their children (Bianchi 2000). We examine how parents organize the time they spend with their children and how this process is affected by their work demands. Previous research has shown that parental involvement is affected by the working hours of parents, but has largely ignored other aspects of employment, such as the organizational culture. Moreover, child-related care and leisure activities are not disentangled. We anticipate that parents will substitute for one another in time with children. We hypothesize that the partner-effect is stronger for essential child-care activities than for more discretionary leisure activities. Additionally, we examine gender differences. Using data on the frequency of child-related activities of 898 Dutch couples, we employ multivariate regression analyses to simultaneously test actor- and partner- effects.