Parents' Family Time and Work Schedules: The Split‐Shift Schedule in Spain

• Author: Pablo Gracia,Matthijs Kalmijn
• Published date: 01 April 2016
• Date: 01 April 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12270

P G  M K University of Amsterdam

Parents’ Family Time and Work Schedules:

The Split-Shift Schedule in Spain

This study used data on couples from the 2003

Spanish Time Use Survey (N=1,416) to analyze

how work schedules are associated with fam-

ily, couple, parent–child, and non-family leisure

activities. Spain is clearly an interesting case

for the institutionalized split-shift schedule, a

long lunch break rooted in the traditional siesta

that splits the workday between morning and

evening. Results showed strong negative asso-

ciations between the split shift and both fam-

ily and parent–child activities. The evening shift

was negatively associated with couple and fam-

ily time, but not with parent–child time. Women

spent much more time than men in parent–child

activities for all work categories, and they were

more responsiveto the spouse’s work hours. Men

were substantially more active than women in

non-family leisure, considering both individu-

als’ and their spouses’ work schedules. Alto-

gether, thisstudy has important implications for

scientic and public policy debates.

In Western societies, women’s paid work time

has risen dramatically since the 1970s, thus

affecting the way parents combine paid work

and family life (Jacobs & Gerson, 2005).

Parents’ amount of paid work is likely to inu-

ence family life, but their work schedules can

also critically interfere with family activities.

Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies, Department of

Sociology, Universityof Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht

166, 1018 WV,Amsterdam, The Netherlands

(pablo.gracia01@gmail.com).

This article was edited by Jennifer Glass.

Key Words: families and work, parent–child relations, time

use, work–family balance, work hours.

Presser’s (2003) seminal study suggested that

working nonstandard hours (i.e., outside 9 a.m.

to 5 p.m.) is generally detrimental to family

life. Recent studies on the United States and

other countries, however, offer mixed evidence.

Although some studies found that nonstan-

dard work hours are negatively associated with

parental care and family activities (Lesnard,

2008; Nock & Kingston, 1998), others did not

nd negative associations between nonstandard

work hours and parents’ time use, particularly

for parental care (Hook & Wolfe, 2013; Wight,

Raley, & Bianchi, 2008). This mixed evidence

motivates further analyses on the links between

work schedules and family time allocation.

Scholars have thus far paid little attention to

study how parents with different work sched-

ules engage in multiple daily activities. This

is an important issue for understanding par-

ents’ trade-offs in activities that potentially com-

pete with each other. Although parents today

are expected to prioritize their time with chil-

dren over other activities (Bianchi, Robinson,

& Milkie, 2006), parents who work at different

times of the day might have different opportu-

nities to spend time in multiple daily activities,

which would affect howthey allocate their actual

time. For example, many child-related activities

have to be restricted to hours in the evening,

after children nish school and before they go

to bed, which might conict with parents’ paid

work time during those hours (Presser, 2003). By

contrast, activities without children, like couple

time, often occur outside the hours of children’s

free time, when children are already sleeping,

which might compete directly with parents’ free

time at nights. Studying how parents’ work

schedules intersect with multiple daily activities

Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (April 2016): 401–415 401

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12270