The leisure gap between working parents

Abstract

Women, especially working mothers, have less leisure time on average than men. This is a well-known fact confirmed by nearly every survey on individual time use⁶⁴. In the German Time Budget Survey of 1991/92 the overall “leisure gap” between the sexes amounts to more than 20 minutes on an average day (Statistisches Bundesamt 1995). When it comes to working adults the gender-specific difference increases to over half an hour for those employed full-time. The greatest leisure gap, however, can be observed in households where both husband and wife hold full-time employment and where there are small children to be cared for. For these couples male partners dispose of one hour more per day than their spouses. Expressed more dramatically, this translates to over nine 40-hours “leisure weeks” per year (two and a half more months of vacation) for fathers with working wives.