How Are Men’s and Women’s Days Different in the United States and Japan?

• In Event: 2266 - Family Section Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 17. Marriage and Time Use

Abstract

Previous research on household labor has found that the amount of time that women and men spend on housework is converging in many countries; furthermore, the difference in time spent on housework is smaller in more gender-equal societies. Such studies have not investigated whether there are gender differences in the timing of four key activities, such as waking up, leaving for work, returning home from work, or going to bed or whether the state of gender relations in the society affects these differences. The male-breadwinner model is in rapid decline in the United States, but it is still the governing norm in Japan. Our analysis of gender differences in time use contributes to the opening of a new research terrain in gender inequality by analyzing the timing of the above-mentioned four key activities, using the 2006 American Time Use Survey and the 2006 Japanese Survey on Time Use and Leisure Activities. Gender differences in the effects of marriage and living with children on the timing of the four activities are investigated. Furthermore, I explore whether such gender differences are smaller in the United States. The results indicate that there are no gender differences in the effects of marriage and living with children on the timing of the four activities in the United States. However, there are significant gender differences for Japan.

Author

• Minoru Yagishita, Tokyo Metropolitan University