Gender differences in the relationship between long employee hours and multitasking

LC Sayer�- Workplace temporalities, 2007 - emerald.com
Workplace temporalities, 2007emerald.com
Time pressures in paid work and household labor have intensified in recent decades
because of the increase in dual-earner families and long and nonstandard employment
hours. This analysis uses US time-diary data from 1998 to 2000 to investigate the
association of employment and household multitasking. Results indicate that mothers do
more multitasking than fathers and the gender gap in household labor is largest for the most
intense type of multitasking: combining housework and child care. In addition, mothers�…
Abstract
Time pressures in paid work and household labor have intensified in recent decades because of the increase in dual-earner families and long and nonstandard employment hours. This analysis uses US time-diary data from 1998 to 2000 to investigate the association of employment and household multitasking. Results indicate that mothers do more multitasking than fathers and the gender gap in household labor is largest for the most intense type of multitasking: combining housework and child care. In addition, mothers employed for long hours spend more time multitasking than mothers employed 35–40h per week. It appears that motivations for multitasking are heterogeneous: some multitasking is done out of convenience, whereas other multitaskings are a strategy used to manage too much work in too little time.
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