Shares of Paid and Unpaid Work and Subjective Time Pressure in Australia, Italy and Korea

• In Event: 295 - Regular Session. Sociology of Time Use

Abstract

Time pressure is a pervasive feature of contemporary life, particularly in families with children. Amount and gender division of paid and unpaid work varies with the social and economic context within which families live, yet no research has investigated relationships between the division of labor and subjective time stress cross-nationally. We examine whether subjective time pressure is related to gender shares of household paid and unpaid work in three countries with contrasting policy frameworks: Australia, Italy and Korea, drawing a subsample of couple-headed households (n=10,220) from the most recent nationally representative Time Use Surveys (TUS) of each country. We show average country differences in amount and gender division of paid and unpaid work, and run logistic regression analyses testing i) whether the way couples share total household paid and unpaid work by gender is associated with subjective time pressure across the countries; ii) whether associations vary by whether the shares of total work are paid or unpaid; and iii) whether associations between parenthood and subjective time pressure differ across the countries. Doing a greater share of total household work predicts significantly higher odds of reported time stress for Australian and Korean men (not Italian). Paid work (but not unpaid) is associated with higher stress for both genders. Children are associated with much higher odds of reporting time stress for Korean women, and for Australian mothers and fathers, but not for Italian parents or Korean fathers.

Authors

• Lyn Craig, University of New South Wales

• Judith Brown, University of New South Wales