Time with children: The impact of couples’ work-time commitments

Using detailed time diaries of a 1981 national sample of 226 married couples with children, we analyze the extent of the trade-off between their time commitments to work and time with their children. Parents in single-earner families spend sub-stantially more time with children than their dual-earner counterparts; the overall difference is largely accounted for by the lesser time of employed mothers in activi-ties that involve children only peripherally, not in directly child-oriented activi-ties. Dual-earner couples have lesser parental time with children for the simple fact that they work more as a unit than single-earner couples. Although the wide-spread employment of women has not led to a more directly participative male parental role, work time affects fathers ' time with children more than mothers'. Only a few years ago the widespread labor force participation of women, especially the married with young children, could aptly be characterized as a silent revolution. Now the prevalence of employed wives with chil-dren is widely recognized, though the full ramifications of this chang