Cross-national Comparison of the Impact of Children on Adult Time

Abstract

This paper uses a framework of welfare state typology pioneered by Gosta Esping-Andersen and developed by Walter Korpi, and data from the Multinational Time Use World 5 Series, to compare the impact of children on adult time-use in four countries (Australia, Italy, Norway and Germany) with different approaches to economic, social and family organisation. It quantifies three measures of the time effects of parenthood. These are 1) the gap between couple parents and non-parents in total paid and unpaid work undertaken (the workload penalty of parenthood), 2) the relative time allocation to paid and unpaid work by couple parents and by non-parents (work-family balance), and 3) the relative contribution to unpaid work by couple parents and by non-parents (gender equity in domestic labour). Of the sample, ‘familialistic’ Italy has the most inequitable division of labour for childless men and women, and it is ‘liberal’ Australia in which the changes in time commitment that come with parenthood are most pronounced and most inequitable by sex.