“IT’S TIME TO CARE! ” A BALANCED TIME ALLOCATION OF EARNER-CARERS? EVIDENCE FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

This paper aims at investigating the disjunction between labour market participation and time allocation of earner-carers. The question addressed is how European countries differ from one another in terms of intra-household allocation of time, especially regarding hours worked and hours spent looking after children. Data for couples with at least one child aged less than 12 are taken from the European Community Household Panel ECHP (wave 6, 1999). The methodology consists in the simultaneous estimation of a set of equations related to working parents ’ time spent looking after their children, a procedure which is conform to economic theory on collective household decision-making. The econometric estimations show that spouses ’ child care time has a complementary rather than a substitutable character. Nevertheless, men’s time at child care has an effect on women’s care time that is twice as large as the impact of women’s time on men’s involvement in child care. The complementarity of spouses ’ child care time stands in the way of convergence towards equality of men and women in terms of time spent on child care. However, a positive move towards equality is observed when women increase their working hours. Even if it may not lead to full gender equality, policy-makers can still take a major step in the right direction by means of the promotion of full-time employment for women although the potential negative side-effects of this policy in terms of a decrease in parents ’ child care time should be followed up very closely