What Gives” when Mothers are Employed? Time Allocation of Mothers and Fathers in Dual Earner and Single Earner Homes. Seminar presented to the Evolving Family Project

In this paper, we compare time allocation of employed and nonemployed mothers using data from 1975 and 2000 time use surveys. Employed mothers spend less time on housework and child care, sleep fewer hours per week, and have less discretionary time. They also report higher levels of stress over their family obligations–compared with mothers who do not devote time to market work, employed mothers are much more likely to feel they spend too little time with their children, and are much more likely to report that they are multitasking most of the time and always feel rushed. 1 Two trends form the conundrum that motivates this paper. On the on hand, there has been a very large shift of mothers into the paid workforce. Between 1970 and 1990, the labor force rates of women, particularly married mothers with young children, rose rapidly in the United States and other developed countries. Although rates of change slowed after 1990, currently almost 70 percent of mothers of preschoolers and 80 percent of mothers of school-age children work at least some hours outside the home. On the other hand, time diary evidenc