Abstract
This study investigates time spent in household management, an important “missing ingredient” in time use studies, using data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS). These data indicate that adults spend an average of just over 1.5 h per week in this function. This figure likely underestimates total management time because (1) management is often done in small blocks, and hence, may be missed; and (2) the ATUS generally fails to capture secondary activities. Thus, efforts to value time spent in household management using these data will similarly produce a low valuation of the household manager role. Notably, measured management time is found to be much more equally distributed among spouses than time spent in core housework tasks.
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Notes
Forensic economists are those called upon to testify in the case of wrongful death or permanent disability. U.S. courts have long held that household services, broadly defined, can be reasonably included as an element in damages resulting from a personal injury or wrongful death, though most studies neglect this factor (Ireland 1997). One example is provided in the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in a very early decision under the Federal Employer’s Liability Act (FELA), the case of Michigan Central Railroad Company v. Vreeland (1913). The Supreme Court held that a broad interpretation of household services is in order when calculating damages, but that the calculations must be based on some standard and must not include emotional losses, but only pecuniary losses of the surviving spouse. Under the Vreeland decision, the loss of household services may be recoverable if they meet two criteria: (1) the service must be valuable even if provided by a stranger (third party); and (2) the service must have a market equivalent in the commercial market (Ireland 1997). Household management meets these “tests.”
Craig (2007) also includes some aspects of management-related child care such as communication with child care workers, but she does not make an explicit distinction between time spent in management-related activities vs. production tasks.
A leading textbook in the field of management (Robbins and DeCenzo 2005) provides a similar description of business management: planning (defining goals and how to achieve them), organizing (identifying a set of tasks to be done and by whom), leading (motivating and resolving conflicts), and controlling (monitoring).
While not the focus of this study, the management role is even more complex in families operating their own businesses. See Avery et al. (2000), Duncan et al. (2000), Fitzgerald et al. (2001), Lee et al. (2006), Lee et al. (2006), and Philbrick and Fitzgerald (2007).
Specifically, the respondent reports on activities that took place from 4:00 a.m. on the day prior to the ATUS interview through 4:00 a.m. on the day of the ATUS interview.
Allard et al. (2007) point out that the ATUS definition of “secondary child care” is broader than the definition used in earlier time use surveys. It includes more passive activities, such as supervising children, in addition to time spent actively engaged with children while doing something else.
While household management time is included in these aggregates, such time is very low as a proportion of the total. Thus, they largely reflect time spent in household production tasks.
For an excellent discussion of the challenges of measuring and interpreting how individuals spend their time, see Fenstermaker (1996).
For further discussion, see Schwartz et al. (2002). Alternatively, Connelly and Kimmel (2007) utilize a matching process to produce “synthetic couples,” thereby permitting a comparison of time usage on a given interview day of a matched wife and husband. This approach is not without its drawbacks, including the issue of whether the interview day is representative of the two partners’ time use patterns, especially for tasks that are performed irregularly.
For adults age 18+, the mean of ExpandedDVD (1.64) is the sum of: ATUSmanage (1.04), HH & Personal Mail (0.23), Purchasing Household & Childcare Services (0.152), Banking & Legal & Real Estate (0.12), Obtaining Social Services (0.002), Organizing and Planning for Children and Adults (0.038), Calls to Household and Childcare Providers (0.045), and Comparison Shopping (0.007).
Studies of time spent in production tasks, including Bianchi et al. (2000), also include a measure of gender ideology since many tasks are sex-typed based on custom. A measure of gender ideology is not available in the ATUS, but as discussed earlier, management is generally regarded as a more “neutral” activity relative to specific production tasks.
In looking at Table 3, the focus of the discussion is on the sign of the Tobit coefficient and the coefficient’s statistical significance. Unlike OLS coefficients, Tobit coefficients do not directly indicate marginal effects. Marginal effects for continuous variables, such as age, are calculated using the following formula: (B × PDF(BX/sigma)). For discrete variables, the formula is somewhat more complicated. For further discussion, see Wooldridge (2006).
For a discussion of this approach, see Schwartz et al. (2002).
As a strategy to manage the time bind, one might speculate that dual-earner wives may be more likely than non-employed wives to undertake management, but then spend less time in this function given time constraints. This possibility, however, is not supported with the ATUS data. In results not reported here, these data show that dual-earner wives are significantly less likely to undertake household management and spend significantly less time on this activity, conditional on participation.
This figure is the $17.46 reported in their Appendix 2 multiplied by 0.75 to reflect the authors’ assumption that the quality of this task is not as high as if performed by a specialist.
Regarding child care, see Folbre and Yoon (2005).
Instead of using time use data such as the ATUS, an alternative method of valuation would be to look for a shadow price for the household management function as a whole. As of 2006, a full-time household manager earned anywhere from $25,000–$120,000 per year (Bick 2006; Buntic 2007). This figure is substantially higher than 1–1.5 h per week multiplied by a commercial wage rate of $12–$13, as assumed in earlier studies. Such a method would, however, substantially overstate the value of household management per se because individuals hired for this function are likely to simultaneously or sequentially perform other tasks in the household.
As noted earlier, Folbre and Yoon (2005) define child care very broadly to include some management-related activities. Nevertheless, time devoted to this activity is very small in comparison to time in tasks.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Michael T. Allison for programming assistance. In addition, the authors are grateful for comments on earlier versions from Reed Olsen, Sabrina Pabilonia, Robert Pollak, David Rose, Leslie Stratton, and participants at the Washington University seminar on Work, Family and Public Policy.
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Winkler, A.E., Ireland, T.R. Time Spent in Household Management: Evidence and Implications. J Fam Econ Iss 30, 293–304 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-009-9160-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-009-9160-0