Abstract
This article examines the relationship between couple time and nonstandard working time, in particular evening work, using household-based time use data from Germany. We analyzed three measures of couple time: total time couples spend together, engaged leisure time and other couple time. Engaged leisure includes joint leisure activities and a mutual acknowledgement of the partner’s presence, while other couple time includes the performance of different activities or joint unpaid work. The results of multiple OLS-regressions on data from 1957 couples across 5871 diary days strongly suggest that evening work reduces not only total couple time but also specifically engaged leisure time. In contrast, other couple time is less affected by time spent in paid evening work. As engaged leisure time is strongly related to relationship stability and satisfaction, it can be assumed that evening work has negative effects on intimate relationships.
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Notes
We use the terms spousal time, partner time and couple time interchangeably, regardless of the legal marital status of the couples in question.
We use the terms “shared leisure” and “joint leisure” interchangeably.
Working from home occurred between 4 and 10%, depending on the day of the week and the gender. We confirmed in additional models (not shown, available on request) that adjusting for working from home with a dummy variable did not alter the results substantially.
Please note that in the German language, the same word is used for both “sex” and “gender”, and the personal questionnaire does not specify whether respondents should indicate their sex or gender. Therefore, thoughout the article, we will be using the term “gender”.
We tested additional sets of three and five dummy variables for children’s age and a continuous variable. The results did not change substantially; therefore, we settled on two age groups.
We confirmed this gendered relationship by calculating models (not shown, available on request) that included an additional interaction term consisting of the paid work effects of both partners (paid work men * paid work woman), which yielded statistically significant results.
In additional models (not shown, available on request), we examined whether childcare activities were the main reason for the negative effect on other couple time. We therefore excluded childcare activities from other couple time and instead adjusted for the time spent on childcare by the partners in a separate control variable. These separate models did not change the direction of either measure of couple time.
For dual-earner couples, we conducted further analyses to determine whether the effects of paid work differ depending on whether both partners work simultaneously (i.e., synchronized) or at different, nonoverlapping times (i.e., desynchronized). The inclusion of this additional distinction did not change the general direction of our results (findings not shown).
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Thomas Klein, Johannes Kopp and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.
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This article was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG); Project: ‘Time use in couple relationships’ (Project Number: 43222222976).
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The article analyzes anonymized secondary data and involves no human case studies or animals. Not applicable.
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Ambiel, B.S., Rapp, I. & Gruhler, J.S. Evening Work and Its Relationship with Couple Time. J Fam Econ Iss (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-023-09934-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-023-09934-8