The Second Shift: Parents' Labor Market Participation, Schedule Configurations and Allocation of Time to Children

Irina Paley, Brown University

Contrary to predictions of comparative advantage and bargaining theories, husbands’ childcare time does not increase with wives’ wages. I develop a model of childcare vs. leisure choice focusing on after-work time and the extent of its overlap between spouses. It enables an alternative test of parents’ substitutability in child quality production, as well as analysis of the effect of schedule changes. Empirical implications are tested using 1997 PSID-CDS combined with May 1997 CPS. IV estimation implies no gender differences when a parent is at home and spouse is at work (during non-overlap). Differences in parents’ responses to each other’s availability occur in the overlap. Women compensate for men’s childcare time provided earlier in the day, but not vise-versa. Contrary to previous findings, results suggest that greater non-overlap may decrease, rather than increase men’s involvement. Flexible schedules may enable more parental care through greater after-work time, but not through greater staggering.