The Effects of Unemployment on Time Use: Individual and Household Approaches*

Draft version. Please, do not quote We analyze how unemployment affects the time use of couples from both individual and household approaches. Specifically, we analyze the effects of unemployment on core activities such as cooking, ironing, or basic childcare, on time stress reported by individuals, and on synchronous leisure and leisure with others (togetherness in leisure). Using the Spanish Time Use Survey 2002-2003, we find, at the individual level, that own unemployment increases the time devoted to childcare and housework activities, and we find differential gender crossed effects, since unemployment in men does not affect the time devoted to childcare by women, and unemployment in women does not affect the time devoted to housework by men. At the household level, we first find that couples with unemployed individuals devote more time to housework and childcare activities, consistent with Becker’s theories of household production, since time intensive commodities are produced more in households with unemployed individuals. Second, unemployment does not affect the time stress of men, while unemployed women report lower levels of time stress, consistent with the economic literature arguing that working women face a “double burden ” or “second shift”. Third, we find that while unemployed wives desire more synchronous leisure with their husbands, husbands do not