Work Rich, Time Poor? Time-Use of Women and Men in Ireland

THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVIEW

require further research. The Jacobs and Gerson (2004) argument that the
increase in dual-earner households has fuelled the rising sense of time-
pressure in the US seems particularly plausible for Ireland, given the recent
rapid rise in the proportion of dual-earner households. We find that women in
dual-earner households have particularly heavy workloads on weekdays and
weekends and that dual-earner couples have the highest joint weekday
workloads, though only slightly higher than male breadwinner couples.
However, amongst men in Ireland it is those in male breadwinner households
that have the highest levels of committed time.

Given the role of paid employment in time-pressure, our evidence
does suggest that the rapid increase in the proportion of Irish adults in
paid employment and the concomitant increase in the proportion of dual-
earner households is likely to have increased levels of time poverty and
feelings of being rushed and stressed in Ireland. However, for the most part,
Irish men and women do not have any less leisure than their European
counterparts.

What emerges most clearly from the findings is that certain groups in the
population are facing a particular time-squeeze - the employed and those
caring for young children and adults. To the extent that more people,
particularly women, are now combining working and caring, this suggests that
policies to facilitate work-life balance are needed to help ameliorate the effects
of the high workload for these groups in contemporary Ireland.

REFERENCES

AGUIAR, M. and E. HURST, 2007. “Measuring Trends in Leisure: The Allocation of
Time Over Five Decades”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, CXXII 3, pp. 969-
1006.

BECKER, G., 1965. “A Theory of the Allocation of Time,” Economic Journal, Vol. 75, pp.
493-517.

BIANCHI, S., J. ROBINSON and M. MILKIE, 2006. Changing Rhythms of American
Family Life. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

BITTMAN, M. and J. WAJCMAN, 2004. “The Rush Hour: The Quality of Leisure Time
and Gender Equity” in N. Folbre and M. Bittman (eds.), Family Time: The Social
Organization of Care, Routledge: London.

BITTMAN, M., 2004a. “Parenting and Employment: What Time-Use Surveys Show” in
N. Folbre and M. Bittman (eds.), Family Time: The Social Organization of Care,
Routledge: London.

BITTMAN, M., 2004b. “Parenthood without Penalty” in N. Folbre and M. Bittman
(eds.), Family Time: The Social Organization of Care, Routledge: London.

CULLEN, K., S. DELANEY AND P. DUFF, 2004. Caring, Working and Public Policy,
Dublin: Equality Authority

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