market. Seasonal dummies are included in both samples; year dummies are included to
distinguish between ATUS data collected in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Unemployment
rates are included as an indicator of local economic conditions. Finally, residence in
Copenhagen is indicated by a dummy variable in Denmark as is residence in an SMSA in the
United States.7 Three regional dummies are also included in the US model.
Sample means for the common set of explanatory variables by country, gender, and
day of the week are presented at the bottom of Table 1. Further details are available from the
authors upon request. The sample wide power measure has a mean value of 0.5 in both the
US and Denmark. This is not surprising given the high degree of marital homogamy typically
observed in terms of education. However, values do range widely within the population at
large, from 0.36 to 0.64 in Denmark and from 0.14 to 0.84 in the US.
A few other cross-country differences are noticeable. Households in general are
smaller in Denmark as they are less likely to include children or other adults. Only about
70% of Danish households are married as compared to 94% in the US, documenting the
higher rate of cohabitation in Denmark. The unemployment rate is also somewhat lower in
Denmark. While observations in the US are evenly spread across the seasons, most of the
Danish data were collected in the fall and the spring. Both samples include about as many
holiday/weekend dates as weekday dates. In the US this is the case because half the diaries
were collected on weekends. In Denmark this is the case because each respondent completed
both a weekday and a weekend survey. However the data do indicate that Americans are
more likely to work on weekends and holidays than Danes as the fraction of work days that
are weekends/holidays is about 6 percent points higher for Americans than for the Danes
(20% versus 14% for women, 23% versus 16% for men).
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