Cap 6

B. ROLES AND LIFESTYLES

6

Life-Cycle andAcross-the-Week Allocationof Time to Daily Activities

Jiri Zuzanek and Brian J. A. Smale

The following analyses focus on the relationship between the life cycle, thedaily uses of time, and the weekly rhythms of everyday life. An attempt ismade to demonstrate that life-cycle situations affect not only the totalamount of weekly time allocated to various daily activities (an issue thathas been examined in the literature), but also the distribution of this timeacross the week. In particular, we examine life-cycle variations in theweekly distribution of time to such activities as work, domestic work,personal needs, and discretionary (leisure) activities. Our analyses areinspired by and make use of three research traditions: (1) the uses of timeor time-budget studies, (2) studies of the life cycle and its effects on dailylife and leisure participation; and (3) studies of "social time."

This is a modified version of a paper that appeared in Loisir et Société/Society and Leisure (1992).

Jiri Zuzanek and Brian J. A. Smale • Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies,University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1.

Time Use Research in the Social Sciences, edited by Wendy E. Pentland, Andrew S. Harvey, M. Powell Lawton, and Mary Ann McColl. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 1999.

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128 JIRI ZUZANEK AND BRIAN J. A. SMALE

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Time-Budget Research

The beginnings of time-budget research are usually placed in the1920s and 1930s (Lundberg, Komorovsky & McInery, 1934; Sorokin &Berger, 1939; Strumilin, 1925/1980). However, wide application of thismethod, making use of detailed time diaries to reconstruct the sequenceand timing of daily events, has taken place only in the 1960s and 1970s(Chapin, 1974; Robinson, 1977; Szalai, 1972).

According to Robinson and Converse (1972), we may visualize the 24hours of a day as the available input of lifestyle resources to all members ofthe population, with the output represented by the choice of activities andthe time allocated to each one of them. In the words of these authors, timebudgets offer "a unique view of the intersection between the imperativesof the human conditions and the range of individual behavioural choice"(p.19).

Time budgets have a number of advantages as a social indicator.

1. Unlike money, time expenditures need not be converted into"constant" dollars or other monetary units. They represent a rather uni-versal measurement of human behavior.

2. Time budgets provide us with measurements of human behaviorthat constitute true " ratio scales". The amount of time spent in one activityalways affects and is affected by the amount of time spent in other activ-ities. In this sense, time budgets are uniquely suited for the analysis of thetrade-offs in human behavior.

3. Compared to participation studies (also known as activity liststudies), which record participation in selected daily or leisure activities,time-budget studies are less susceptible to the failure of recall and norma-tive biases in reporting behavior. By focusing on behavior during the dayof the survey or the day preceding the survey and by covering the wholerange of human activities rather than singling out one particular type(leisure, cultural activities, etc.), time budgets assure greater accuracy ofrecall and reduce possible biases towards inflating participation in sociallydesirable or normatively approved activities.

For these and other reasons, time-budget data lend themselves partic-ularly well to three types of analyses: the analyses of social differences inthe uses of time by various sociodemographic and socio-occupationalgroups (stratification analysis), the analyses of social change as reflected inchanging allocations of time through a given period of time (trend an-alyses), and, finally, comparative analyses of similarities and differences in

ALLOCATION OF TIME TO DAILY ACTIVITIES

allocations of time for various activities in different countries and cultures (comparative or cross-cultural analyses).

However, some major issues remain open to debate and represent serious methodological challenges to time-budget research. One such is-sue concerns the classification of daily activities in time-budget studies. How comprehensive and functional are the categories of activities we use in time-budget studies, and what rationale other than tradition and conve- nience is there for classifying various activities the way we do?

The question of why we classify daily activities the way we do was raised some time ago by Chapin (1974) in his book Human Activity Patterns in the City. Chapin says in this book, among other things:

An activity has a number of properties. It has a duration, a position in time, a

place in a sequence of events, and fixed location or a path in space. The activity may involve only the subject whose actions are being reported, or the activity

may be shared with others. An activity has a purpose or character which can be used in establishing the taxonomy of activities in the classification system being

used. (p. 37)

129

An activity class, Chapin suggests, might be simply shopping. It might, however, also be (1) driving from home to the shopping center, (2) buying groceries, and (3) driving home again. Further on, the same activity may be classified in an even more detailed way, such as (1) driving from one’s home to the shopping center; (2) hunting for a parking space; (3) parking the car; (4) walking from the parking lot to the supermarket; (5) picking up a cart, walking the aisles, and selecting grocery items; (6) going through the checkout and paying the cashier; (7) carrying the groceries to the parking lot; (8) driving home; (9) carrying the grocery bags into the kitchen; and (10) putting the groceries away.

Chapin states correctly that the choice of one of the three classifica-tions of activities depends largely on the purpose of the investigation. A concern with shopping as a phenomenon of culture may be well served by the first and broadest definition. A concern with public transportation planning may benefit from the second classification. Finally, a concern with the organization and efficiency of a supermarket operation can use the third, most detailed classification.

Classification of activities adopted for our analyses is directed toward the study of the life cycle, as well as lifestyle differences and changes in human behavior, and follows a relatively well-established sociological and social-psychological tradition of recognizing functional distinctions be-tween economically motivated behavior (work for pay), biologically or physiologically determined behavior (sleep, eating, personal hygiene), family-role-oriented and household-maintenance activities (child care, house chores), and discretionary or leisure behavior.


The Life Cycle

The limitations of using single-item demographic variables such as age, gender, marital status, or employment status in explaining complex patterns of everyday life have been long recognized by economists study-ing consumer behavior (Fisk, 1963; Lansing & Kish, 1957; Rich & Jain, 1968); sociologists examining uses of time and quality-of-life issues (Campbell, 1981; Wilensky, 1961), as well as students of family life (Angrist, 1967; Glick,1955; Heck, 1985; Rapoport & Rapoport, 1975; Rodgers, 1964; Sanik, 1990). According to the proponents of the life-cycle concept, biological age as-sumes functional significance only in conjunction with gender and marital status; gender acquires its social meaning only when coupled with marital status, and marital status assumes its functional relevance when controlled for the presence or absence of children.

It has been suggested, for example, that three 19- to 24-year-oldwomen, even though they are of the same age, will not necessarily be at the same stage of the life cycle. If the first woman is single, employed, and financially independent, while the second is married with no children, and the third is married with two young children and staying at home, their leisure behavior can hardly be explained by using the category of "19- to24-year-old women." It is much more logical to plan for and attempt tounderstand people within the context of their life-cycle stages rather than their biological age or marital status alone, since the former approach takesinto account the total employment and family situation, including pres-ence or absence of children and their ages.

Authors who have advanced notions of life cycle, life course, life career, or career configuration usually define life cycle as a composite variable combining, in a functionally meaningful way, biological charac-teristics (e.g., gender, age, health and physical vigor) with social-rolecharacteristics (e.g., marital status, presence of children, occupational ca-reer progression), and social-ps ychological orientations or motivationalstructures (Angrist, 1967; Frenkel-Brunswik, 1968; Gordon, Gaitz, & Scott, 1976; Lowenthal, Thurnher, & Chiriboga, 1975; McPherson, 1985; Mic-helson, 1985; Neugarten & Peterson, 1957). It has been suggested that analyses using life cycle as an independent variable explain a greater amount of variance in daily consumer and leisure behavior than their "constituent" single-item components (Lansing & Kish, 1957; Zuzanek, 1979).

Zuzanek (1979) proposes that life cycle can be operationalized as a combination of four factors, each representing one of the major biological or social role continua in human life, that is, biological age, marital status, presence of children, and employment status. Conceptually, these factors are associated with a series of physiological and functional dispositions or

ALLOCATION OF TIME TO DAILY ACTIVITIES 131

constraints affecting human behavior and the use of time by different life-cycle groups.

As seen in Figure 6.1, the primary dimension underlying human lifecycle is age. It can be represented by a sequence of years or by a series of 5-year (or larger) intervals. Marital status also can be viewed as a contin-uum. A person is single at first, then he or she usually gets married. Eventually, people become widows or widowers. As for the presence of children, the human life can be divided into five major stages. A persondoes not have children at first. Then, most men and women create a family and have children. Eventually children leave the family (the "empty nest"stage). The period when children are a part of the family (household) canbe further divided into a period with preschool children (at least one child under the age of 6), and with school-age children (one or more children of 6 to 18 years).

Employment status can be represented in the form of a continuum as well. Men usually progress through four major "employment status"stages: a dependent child, a student (conventionally divided into elemen-tary school, secondary school, and college stages), an employee, and,ultimately, a retiree. In the case of women, one can differentiate betweentwo major "employment status" patterns. The career pattern of employedwomen is similar to that of men in that it includes four major stages: child, student, employee, and retiree. What distinguishes this life-cycle pattern from that of men is likely interruptions of women's "employee" careerpattern around the birth of the children. The second female career pattern(i.e., that of the "homemaker") can usually be divided into four stages aswell. The child and student stages are often followed by a short period of employment that, after the birth of the first child, gives way to a "home-maker" career, which may be a permanent or temporary arrangementdepending on the woman's intention to return to work.

Obviously, with changing social and economic conditions, some of the traditional or "modal" life-cycle patterns have witnessed change. Maritaldissolutions and teenage pregnancies outside of marriage have drawn the attention of researchers to single parenthood. Growing numbers of child-less marriages are yet another factor deserving attention. However, the very complexity of modern life-cycle arrangements calls for a better un-derstanding of the relationship between the major components of life cycle

as a sequence of changing role constellations. A review of studies concern-ing the family, time use, and leisure suggests that aging, marriage, pres-ence of children (particularly small ones), and employment act together as a series of dispositions and constraints enhancing or limiting personal leisure-time resources (Berardo, Shehan, & Leslie, 1987; Juster, 1985; Robin-son, 1977; Sanik & Mauldin, 1986; Walker & Woods, 1976).


While the effects of biological age are primarily of a psychophysiological nature (i.e., involving a reduction of physical strength, endurance, mo-bility, etc.), marriage and presence of children affect the amounts of discre-tionary time by imposing on a person certain familial role obligations. Employment, particularly where long hours of work are involved, also reduces the amount of time and perhaps energy for the pursuit of one’s leisure interests.

Although, on an overall basis, the four aforementioned factors (i.e.,aging, marriage, presence of children, and employment) are considered primarily as constraints upon leisure participation, employment likely contributes to leisure participation by increasing the financial resources of the family, as well as contributing to what some sociologists call "socialcentrality," or the number of structured social contacts or connectionsmaintained by the individual with other members of the society.

Chapin (1974), Hill (1985), and Coverman and Sheley (1986), in theUnited States; Lupri and Symons (1982), Shaw (1987), and Zuzanek and Box (1988), in Canada; and Huet, Lamel, and Roy (1978), in France, have examined life-cycle differences in the daily lives of urban residents. Ac-cording to these authors, the loads of paid work and housework have been shown to peak during the middle stages of the life cycle. "Asymmetry" hasbeen found to characterize allocations of time for housework, family oblig-ations, and discretionary activities by men and women of different marital and employment status. Significant differences were found between em-ployed married women with small children and mothers at home in their subjective definition of family obligations as either a chore or a leisurely pursuit. Increases in the amounts of discretionary time among the elderly were shown to coincide with a decline in the repertoire of their leisure pursuits.

SocialTime

The notion of social time was introduced in sociology at the turn of the century by Durkheim (1965), and his associates and followers, in particu-lar, Mauss (1963) and Halbwachs (1980). These authors examined the effects of the " rhythms of collective life" (including the calendar and theweek) on the daily life in different societies. In the 1930s, the issue of social

time has been addressed by Sorokin and Merton (1937) and Sorokin (1943). Sorokin, in Sociocultural Causality, Space and Time (1943), pointed out

the importance of structuring human behavior along weekly lines:

Imagine for a moment that the week suddenly disappeared. What a havoc

would be created in our time organization, in our behaviour, in the coordina-

tion and synchronization of collective activities and social life, and especially inour time apprehension. Many of us would certainly mix our appointments,shift and change our activities, and fail many times to fulfil our engagements. If


there were neither the names of the days nor the weeks, we would be liable to

be lost in an endless series of days—as grey as fog—and confuse one day with

another. We think in week units; we apprehend time in week units; we localize

the events and activities in week units; we co-ordinate our behaviour according

to the " week"; we live and feel and plan and wish in " week" terms. It is one

of the most important points of our "orientation" in time and social reality.

(p. 420)

Some of the most detailed analyses of the week as a social and culturalphenomenon can be found in Zerubavel's Hidden Rhythms (1981) and TheSeven Day Circle (1985). According to Zerubavel, the week provides an ideal context for examining the distinctively social interaction betweenpeople and time.

Unlike the day and the year, the week is an artificial rhythm that was created by

human beings totally independent of any natural periodicity. . . . The week is the

only major rhythm of human activity that is totally oblivious to the nature. . . .

Its invention was one of the first major attempts by humans to break away from

being prisoners of nature, and create an artificial world of their own. (1985, p. 4)

Zerubavel maintains that the weekly temporal order exercises a powerful influence on all human behavior and human attitudes. There are distinct expectations for behaviors and attitudes associated with different days ofthe week, particularly weekends as opposed to weekdays. An expectation of normal sequencing and temporal location of events and behaviors is,according to this author, one of the basic " background expectancies" of anormal life (1981, p. 21). "Recalling what day today is, is one of the firstthings we usually do upon waking. . . . Adhering to the week protects usfrom the dreadful prospect of practical exile from the social world" (1985,p. 2). Zerubavel comments on the peculiar character of Mondays as "start-up" or "warm-up" days of the week, or Fridays as days immediatelypreceding the weekend ("Thank God, It’s Friday!"). Likewise, Zerubavelexamines differences between behavioral and experiential profiles of Sun-days as opposed to Saturdays. Zerubavel's intellectually stimulating an-alyses are based on historical, observational and, to a lesser extent, time-budget survey data.

Some of the issues addressed by Zerubavel conceptually have beenexamined empirically by researchers studying the uses of time or " timebudgets" of human behavior. Szalai (1972), Katz and Gurevitch (1976),Robinson (1977), Hill (1985), to name a few, have examined differences in the allocation of time to housework, family obligations, personal needs, and leisure activities, on workdays as opposed to weekends, and on different days of the week, using time-budget data. These analyses have demonstrated that differences between workdays and weekends cannot be reduced to the simple opposition of work and rest. Workdays and


weekend days have complex behavioral profiles, characterized by differ-ent configurations of daily activities. Regrettably, time-budget researchers have paid, as yet, relatively little attention to behavioral differences be-tween individual days of the week—that is, Mondays versus midweek days, or Saturdays versus Sundays—nor did they examine in greater detail the interplay between the weekly distribution of time and the life cycle.

STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM

The following analyses focus on across-the-week distribution of time to major daily activities as a function of life cycle. In particular, they address the following questions:

1. How do the weekly rhythms of daily life differ for single employed men and employed fathers with small children from those of women in similar life-cycle situations?

2. How do the weekly rhythms of daily life of single employed men and women differ from those of married employed men and women with small children?

3. How different are the weekly rhythms of daily life of employed married women with small children from those of mothers at home?

4. How do the factors singled out (i.e., gender, marital status, and employment status) interact with each other in affecting weekly rhythms of daily life and its various components?

DATABASE AND OPERATIONALIZATION OF THE VARIABLES

Data for this study were drawn from the General Social Survey (GSS) conducted by Statistics Canada late in 1986. Using the Random Digit Dialing sampling technique, telephone interviews were completed with individuals 15 years of age and older, taken from a total of 9,946 house-holds randomly selected from across Canada. Respondents provided in-formation on their time use for the 24-hour period encompassing a ran-domly selected day from the previous week. In conjunction with some basic demographic characteristics, social mobility, and language use, the interview gathered time use information on the primary activity in which the respondent was involved, the total duration of each activity involve-ment (reported in minutes), where the activity took place, and with whom the respondent was involved. Activities identified by the respondents


were classified into 99 predesigned categories that were organized by GSS under general classes such as employed work, domestic work, entertain-ment, and care of children.

The data were organized for the two principal variables examined in this chapter: (1) life-cycle category., and (2) activity grouping. Life-cyclecategories were created for adults between the ages of 25 and 44 yearsbased on their gender, marital status, employment status, and the presence in the home of children under the age of 5 years. The resultant five life-cycle groupings selected for analysis were as follows:

1. Single, employed women with no children at home 2. Single, employed men with no children at home 3. Married, employed women with at least one child under 5 years

4. Married, nonemployed women with at least one child under 5

5. Married, employed men with at least one child under 5 years of age

While many different groupings could be examined, the groups se-lected for our analyses hold particular interest due to the constraints associated with these life-cycle stages and their contribution to the under-standing of instances of "asymmetry" in the weekly distribution of activ-ities between these life-cycle groups.

Specific activities reported by the respondents were reorganized into groupings of activities reflecting major spheres of daily involvements. The dominant spheres examined were work, domestic activities, child care, personal care, and leisure. Each of these groupings embraced a number of related activities including, for example, the travel time devoted to going to and returning from the primary activity. The work grouping included activities such as work for pay, overtime work, delays at work, and coffee and other breaks. The domestic activities grouping included meal prepara-tion and cleanup, indoor and outdoor cleaning, laundry and mending, and home repairs. The child care grouping included baby care; helping chil-dren with homework; reading, talking, and conversing with children; playing with children and other child care. The personal care grouping included activities such as washing, dressing, sleeping, and meals at home. Finally, the leisure grouping included a wide array of recreational pursuits including attendance at sports events, concerts, theater, and movies; socializing; sports and hobbies; and media activities such as listen-ing to the radio, records, and tapes, watching television, conversing with others, and reading books, magazines, and newspapers.

of age at home

years of age at home

at home.


Figure 6.2. Mean duration of Work Activities for life-cycle groups by day of week.

In addition, a number of specific activities of particular interest were drawn out for closer scrutiny including housework, the preparation of food, laundry, and the following leisure activities: dining out and watching television.

Mean total durations in minutes were calculated for each activity category for each of the five life-cycle groups on each of the 7 days of the week. These data were used to plot Figures 6.2 to 6.11 to demonstrate how life-cycle affects allocation of time to given activities over the week.

DATA ANALYSES

One-way analyses of variance were conducted for each of the compar-isons described earlier. Due to the large amount of information generated, the results of the statistical tests, which lend support to the discussion to follow, are summarized in Appendix A. Due to the large number of comparisons being made for each group across days of the week, the alpha level was adjusted using the Bonferroni procedure to help control for Type


I errors. Decisions regarding the significant differences among groups as reported in Appendix A reflect this adjustment.

Figure 6.2 shows that the weekly distribution of work for pay is affected primarily (as one would expect) by the workday–weekend cycleand the employment status of the respondent. Of all life-cycle groups, employed fathers report the greatest number of hours of work on virtually all days of the week, while mothers at home report the fewest number of hours of work for pay.

Other variations in the weekly distribution of paid work seem to be affected by gender and marital status. Figure 6.2 demonstrates that onworkdays, employed fathers spend, on average, 2 to 3 hours more time in paid work than their employed female counterparts. This difference ex-tends to weekends. The fewer working hours of employed mothers are, quite likely, a reflection of employed women's reduced job workloads. Onthe other hand, single women report more hours of paid work, albeit not significantly more than single men on all workdays, save Mondays.

In general, marital status affects differently the distribution of work-ing hours of men and women. Married, employed men work more hours than single men, and significantly more on Fridays. The reverse is true of women. Single women work more hours than married mothers.

Figures 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, and 6.6 demonstrate some interesting variations in across-the-week distribution of housework, errands, and child care as a function of gender, marital, and employment status.

Figure 6.3 shows that on all days of the week, single, employed men and employed fathers spend less time in domestic activities than any one of the three female life-cycle groups, including single, employed women. Figure 6.3 also demonstrates that, on the basis of the volume of domestic activity, one can, roughly, distinguish between three major groupings of respondents: (1) single, employed men; married, employed men; and sin-gle, employed women, all reporting relatively low amounts of domestic work; (2) employed mothers reporting medium amounts of domestic work; and (3) mothers at home reporting the highest amounts of domestic work.

With regard to the across-the-week configuration of domestic activ-ities, Figure 6.3 reveals two large patterns. The first pattern is characterized by an increase of domestic activities on Saturdays, followed by a decline of these activities on Sundays. This pattern is typical of all life-cycle groups, save employed mothers. The second pattern, characterized by higher levels of domestic activity on both Saturdays and Sundays, applies to employed mothers.

For mothers at home, similar to single, employed men and women, and married, employed men, Sundays are days off! For employed mothers,




Saturdays and Sundays are days of "catching up" and taking care of thingsthat were not done during the week.

This situation seems to be corroborated by Figures 6.4 and 6.5. Figure 6.4 shows that, compared to mothers at home, employed mothers spend less time preparing food on all days of the week, with the exception of Sundays. Female homemakers with small children reduce their time spentin cooking and food preparation on Thursdays through Sundays, whereas employed mothers with small children increase it. Thus, a paradox occurs:On Sundays, employed mothers cook, bake, and clean dishes more than on any other day of the week. Furthermore, they spend somewhat more time at it on Sunday than their nonemployed female counterparts.

Figure 6.5 demonstrates a similar situation with regard to child care. For mothers at home, time spent in child care declines on Saturdays and Sundays. For employed mothers and fathers, it increases on these same days.

In general, Figures 6.3,6.4, and 6.5 demonstrate that the amounts andthe distribution of domestic work, food preparation, and child care across the week are strongly affected by respondents’ marital and employment status for women, but not so much for men.

Employed, married women with small children report almost twice the number of hours of domestic work compared to that reported by employed, single women on all days of the week, save Saturdays. Mothersat home report 1.5 to 2.0 times more hours of domestic work and food preparation than those reported by their employed counterparts on all days of the week, except Sundays.

Single men and employed fathers, on the other hand, report almostidentical amounts of housework throughout the week. The only exception to this pattern is Saturday, when employed fathers actively engage infamily shopping and report higher levels of domestic activity than single men. Employed, married mens' contribution to food preparation amounts,on average, to 15 minutes per day, with the exception of Sunday, when it rises to half an hour. Employed fathers increase their contribution to child care on Sundays, producing a somewhat more equitable male-femalepartnership in this area of family life. However, men’s Sunday child-carecontribution remains lower than that of married, nonemployed women.

According to Figure 6.6, Monday is the " laundry day" for mothers athome (see Zerubavel, 1985). Following Monday homemakers’ involve-ment with laundry declines. It is lowest on Saturdays and Sundays. For the employed mothers, " laundry days" include Mondays, Saturdays, andSundays. For single, employed women, " laundry days" seem to fall onSaturdays, Sundays, and Mondays.

Figure 6.7 summarizes data on the across-the-week distribution of night sleep for the five surveyed life-cycle groups. The graph shows that


Figure 6.7. Mean duration of Sleep for life-cycle groups by day of week.

the amount of sleep varies little during the work week but increases substantially for all life-cycle groups on Sundays. This trend has been reported by other authors as well (Robinson, 1977; Szalai, 1972). Mothers at home spend somewhat more time in night sleep than other life-cycle

groups. It also appears that their sleep is more evenly distributed across the week than in the case of other life-cycle groups. It peaks twice: onThursdays and on Sundays (the two-hump pattern).

Figure 6.8 summarizes life-cycle differences in the weekly distribution of discretionary time (leisure activities). This graph shows a relatively uniform pattern for all life-cycle groups, that is, an increase of the total amount of discretionary time on Fridays, and particularly Saturdays andSundays. Only one life-cycle group deviates from this pattern, namely, theemployed mothers. The amount of leisure time reported by this group onSundays is lower than it is on Saturdays and Fridays. "Catching up," asdiscussed earlier, obviously takes its toll and limits this group’s access to discretionary pursuits.

Figures 6.9 and 6.10 provide information about life-cycle variations in the weekly distribution of two rather different components of leisure, namely, dining out and watching television. Figure 6.9 indicates that of all

143ALLOCATION OF TIME TO DAILY ACTIVITIES

Figure 6.8. Mean duration of Leisure Activities for life-cycle groups by day of week.

Figure 6.9. Mean duration of Dining Out for life-cycle groups by day of week.


Figure 6.10. Mean duration of Watching Television for life-cycle groups by day of week.

life-cycle groups, single men and women spend the greatest amounts oftime dining out (and men more So than women). This graph also revealsthat dining out peaks for all life-cycle groups on Saturdays. The amount of time spent dining out is almost twice as high on Saturdays as on other days of the week. For single men and women, the "secondary" peak for diningout seems to be Thursday, while for married individuals, it may be Friday. Of all surveyed life-cycle groups, mothers at home report the lowestoverall levels of dining out.

According to Figure 6.10, watching television shows a different across-the-week distribution than dining out. Although both dining out and watching television "peak" on the weekend, Sunday rather thanSaturday is the " television day." Figure 6.10 reveals important differencesin the television viewing habits of men and women on workdays and weekends. On workdays, the differences between male and female life-cycle groups appear to be considerably smaller than on weekends. During the work week, mothers at home spend more time watching television than other life-cycle groups. They are followed by single and married, employed men, with single women and employed mothers reporting the lowest amounts of television watching. On weekends, particularly on


Sundays, men, both single and married, report almost twice the amount of television watching reported by corresponding female life-cycle groups, and considerably more than mothers at home. It seems as though Sundays amplify gender differences in the leisure behavior of men and women. Men, freed from the constraints of work, plunge into watching television, while women direct additional time into a greater variety of family and other leisure pursuits.

As in a few other instances, employed women with small children represent an exception to the general pattern. Their television watchingdeclines rather than increases on Saturdays and Sundays, testifying to the overall " business" of their weekend schedules as reflected in the earliergraphs of activities.

DISCUSSION

In the following discussion, we focus on several issues addressed in the previous section. We attempt to put these issues into a broader research and conceptual context and relate them to findings reported in the literature.

Beyond the Workday-Weekend Dichotomy

Our analyses indicate that behavioral differences among the days of the week cannot be fully explained by the workday–weekend dichotomy. The behavioral patterns of Saturdays and Sundays differ significantly. Likewise, workdays such as Mondays or Fridays possess behavioral fea-tures that make them distinct from other workdays.

Saturdays come out of our analyses as the days of domestic work andshopping, as much as days of leisure. Much of Saturdays' leisure (unlikeSundays') is consumed in outings. Sundays are, on the other hand, days ofsleep, rest, family contacts, child care, and mostly passive leisure (for men, especially watching television).

Among workdays, Monday is often credited with a special status as aday of transition and readjustment following the weekend. Monday is sometimes referred to as the " blue Monday" characterized by high rates ofabsenteeism, higher accident rates, greater frequency of emergency calls to hospitals, and so on (Zerubavel, 1985). Our analyses indicate that, indeed, behaviorally, Mondays differ from other workdays. This difference may assume different forms for different life-cycle groups. For employed women, Mondays are days with the fewest working hours. For married women with small children, Mondays are the days with the heaviest child-care load. For mothers at home, as indicated earlier, Monday is the " laun-


dry day". For all life-cycle groups, Mondays are days with the lowestreported levels of dining out.

The workdays in the middle of the week—Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays—do not appear as distinct as Mondays, although Tues-days seem to stand out as days with highest reported levels of paid work.The literature suggests that Fridays may be affected by their proximity to the weekend and consequently are characterized by lower levels of paidwork (Zerubavel, 1985). Our data seem to substantiate this observation with regard to men, but not women. Men's reported hours of paid work on Fridays are lower than on other workdays (this is only true of single men). Yet women's working hours on Fridays are the same or, perhaps, even slightly higher than on other days of the week.

"Asymmetry and "Asynchronization" of Daily Lifeas a Function of Life Cycle

According to Shaw,

Traditional time budget studies show that while employed women have the

least free time (time spent in nonobligatory activities) and nonemployed

women have the most, employed men fall between these two groups in terms

of mean free time per day. This rank ordering of the three gender and employ-

ment status groups is a consistent finding of time budget studies in Canada, the

United States and other parts of western industrialized world. (1988, p. 8)

Contrary to the claim made by Young and Wilmott (1973) in their widely quoted book The Symmetrical Family, time-budget research consistentlydemonstrates that the distribution of time for domestic work, family oblig-ations, and leisure activities between the two genders and various life-cycle groups is anything but symmetrical (Harvey & Elliott, 1983; Lupri & Symons, 1982; McPherson, 1985; Meissner, Humphreys, Meis, & Scheu,1975; Robinson, 1977; Shaw, 1987,1988; Szalai, 1972).

Our data, basically, support the findings reported in earlier studies, albeit with some modifications. The 1986 GSS data show that, if paid work,domestic work, and child care are aggregated, employed mothers with small children report on workdays 2.0 to 2.5 hours greater workloads, halfan hour less sleep, and 1.0 to 2.0 hours less leisure compared to mothers at home (see Figure 6.11). This "asymmetry" between employed mothers and mothers at home subsides on Saturdays, but it deepens again on Sundays, when employed mothers report 1.5 hours higher overall workloads, and 2 fewer hours of leisure time than mothers at home.

Surprisingly, the situation does not appear nearly as "asymmetric"when time budgets of employed mothers are compared with those of employed fathers. The overall workloads of employed mothers are lower


Figure 6.11. Mean duration of All Work Activities for life-cycle groups by day of week.

than those reported by employed fathers on Mondays and Tuesdays,slightly higher on Wednesdays, and approximately the same on Thurs-days and Fridays. Employed mothers sleep a little longer than employed fathers during the first part of the work week, but less toward the end of the work week. Only with regard to leisure does the group of employed mothers lag somewhat behind employed fathers (on average, about half an hour less leisure per workday). However, the situation gets much more"asymmetric" on weekend days. Employed fathers report workloads thatare 1.0 to 1.5 hours lower than those reported by employed mothers, and free time that exceeds that reported by employed mothers by 2.0 to 2.5 hours per day.

It appears as though discussion of the "asymmetric" distribution oftime between different life-cycle groups needs to be controlled for the weekly cycle. Weekends in general, and Sundays in particular, "amplify"behavioral "asymmetry" between genders and employed and nonemployed mothers with regard to overall workloads and the uses of free time (e.g., widening of the television viewing gap between men and women on Sundays). Yet at the same time, they serve as "dampers" of asymmetrictendencies in such areas of daily life as child care.


The life-cycle "asymmetry" in daily behaviors and family life takes, attimes, a dramatic form of "asynchronization" or "arrythmia." Differentthan other surveyed life-cycle groups, employed mothers with small chil-dren increase rather than reduce their domestic work and child care on weekends compared to workdays. On Sundays, they report having lessleisure than on Saturdays. The "catching up," which we mentioned earlier,denies employed women with small children access to a functionally indispensable physiological and psychological break, and produces a state that could be characterized in medical parlance as "acute arrythmia."

Impact of Marital and Employment Status

Our analyses support the contention that gender acquires its func-tional relevancy with regard to respondents’ daily behavior only when coupled with marital status and the presence or absence of children, or conversely, that marital status and presence of children can explain human daily behavior only if controlled for gender. The differences in the amounts of working hours reported by single, employed men and single, employedwomen are not nearly as great as the differences between employed fa-thers and employed mothers. The same is true of domestic work. The differences between the amounts of domestic work reported by single, employed women and single, employed men are smaller than the differ-ences between employed, married men and employed, married women with small children. In summary, marital status and presence of children contribute to and amplify asymmetry in men’s and women’s uses of time and their family life.

Our data likewise support the contention that gender and maritalstatus strongly interact with respondents' employment status as determi-nants of time allocations and sequencing of daily life. In the case ofwomen, for which the role of the employment status was examined, being employed clearly contributes to the asymmetry in the distribution of domestic work and organization of family life. Employment status exacer-bates "asymmetric" distribution of domestic work and leisure oppor-tunities much the same way as marital status and presence of children. Unfortunately, our sample did not contain a sufficiently large number of nonemployed male respondents in the 25–44 age category to conduct a parallel analysis of the role of the employment status in the uses of time by men. Other literature suggests, however, that for men, the role of employ-ment status in determining their domestic workloads and family obliga-tions may be less pronounced than in the case of women (Shaw, 1987).


Daily Life as a System of Behavioral Trade-offs

Deem (1982) and Shaw (1985,1987) have suggested that employment represents for women a kind of trade-off, with the losses in the availability of free time being compensated by an improvement in the quality of leisure experiences. This may very well be true. Yet such essentially social and psychological compensation appears insufficient in the face of consid-erable time pressures under which many employed mothers operate. A complementary behavioral trade-off may be needed to balance the situa-tion. Our data seem to suggest that some such trade-offs are already taking place without being paid sufficient attention.

Clearly, the reduced workloads of employed women, accounting for the 2.0- to 3.0-hour difference in the average daily workloads reported by employed men and women, is one way to arrive at a more balanced distribution of overall workloads (domestic work and child-care included) between employed men and employed women. Another trade-off is ap-parently taking place on Mondays, when women take it as a day out, to compensate for the time-pressed Sunday. Perhaps, somewhat surprisingly, the avenue for more equitable division of domestic and family respon-sibilities between men and women, most often discussed in popular and research literature (i.e., an increase in employed men's relative contribu-tion to family’s obligations), does not look as promising in view of our evidence as one might have expected. The overall workloads of employed men on workdays are at least equal to those of women, so any major redressing of the existing situation can be accomplished at the expense of weekend days only. This may, however, produce a not very attractive "symmetry" of time pressed and stressful weekend life, rather than con-tribute to the upgrading of the overall quality of family life.

In general, it appears that the potential solutions to some of the social inequities and asymmetries in daily and family life are closely tied not only to a change in societal gender-role expectations but also to the larger structural reforms affecting character, forms, and the scheduling of work-ing time and life for both men and women.

CONCLUSIONS

Durkheim, Sorokin, and Zerubavel, to name only a few, emphasized social and functional significance of weekly rhythms as a pulsation be-tween the sacred and the profane, work and rest, the public and the private. The week has been declared one of humanity's greatest cultural


accomplishments, which allowed humankind to structure and organize its physical, family, social, economic, cultural, and spiritual life in a balanced and manageable way. The institution of the week, as we know it, has been on several occasions challenged throughout modern history (e.g., during the French Revolution and a century later in revolutionary Russia), yet haswithstood the test of time.

Lately, the institution of the week seems to have been both enhanced by the introduction of the full second day off (long weekend) and eroded (decline of religious connotations, proliferation of weeklong services, Sun-day shopping, and so on). Some of these changes may carry with them unintended consequences of quickening the pace of our social life. Para-doxically, the synchronization of services may produce as a side effect an asynchronization and arrythmia in family life. One of the basic challenges posed to us by these developments is to understand the relationship between the life cycle and the weekly distribution of time. Concerns with the phenomenon of "blue Monday", as it affects employed men andwomen, or the phenomenon of "Sunday blues," as these affect employedwomen with small children, are not at all trivial.

Appendix A. Results of Analyses of Variance Comparing the Five Life-Cycle Groupings on Selected Activity Categories for Each Day of the Week

Day of the WeekaActivitycategory Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Work 78.558** 75.268** 57.679** 31.650** 58.664** 4.649** 3.943**

a→be c→abe c→ae c→e b→ae d→abce d→e

c→be d→abce d→abce d→abce cued+abced+abce

Domestic 40.873** 39.517** 46.797** 18.839** 28.956** 7.508** 7.087** activities c→abe c→aabe c→abe c→abe d→abce d→abce a→c

d→abce d→abce d→abce d→abe b→cde→cd

Preparation 50.008** 88.017** 53.615** 24.334** 35.868** 20.965** 12.545** of food c→abe c→abe c→abe c→abe c→be c→abe c→cd

d→abce d→abce d→abce d→abce d→abce d→abce b→cd

e→cd

Laundry 14.697** 19.658** 18.906** 5.358** 7.404** 3.541** 2.711* c→e d→abce c→ abe d →abe d→abce e→ad d→ed→abce d→abce

Childcare 76.591** 62.913** 56.961** 33.505** 34.521** 11.125** 19.580**c→abe c→abe c→abe c→ab c→ab c→abe a→cded→abce d→abce d→abce d→abce d→abce d→abe b→cdee→ab e→ab e→ab e→ab e→b e→ab e→d


AppendixA. (Continued)

Day of the WeekaActivitycategory Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

Sleep 0.552 3.774** 1.311 4.290** 1.347 0.705 2.767

a→e d→abce b→de

Leisure 10.302** 8.123** 7.876** 3.483** 2.803* 6.728** 6.978** activities c→abd b→ace c→abd c→xde b→ae c→abe d→abce

e→abd d→cd e →bd d→abe

b→acde b→cd b→de a→d b→de b→acdeDining out 4.259** 2.900* 2.850* 5.369** 4.902** 6.701** 1.624

b+cde

Television 1.705 1.325** 3.097* 1.409 0.756 2.199 6.853** viewing b→acde

All work 10.152** 9.796** 8.518** 4.232** 6.222** 4.065*** 7.287** activities' c -→d a→e b→ec d→ce b→ace b→cde a→xde

e→abd b→e d→ace d→ae b→cde

c→e

d→ bce

*Significant differences between life-cycle groupings at 0.05 level.**Significant differences between life-cycle groupings at 0.01 level. 1Includes paid work, domestic activities, child care, and other household duties.Legend:a = single, employed women with no children at home.b = single, employed men with no children at home. c = married, employed women with at least one child under 5 years of age at home.d = married, nonemployed women with at least one child under 5 years of age at home. e = married, employed men with at least one child under 5 years of age at home. Note: F-ratios are reported in the table. Below the F-ratios are pairs of life-cycle groupingsfound to be Significantly different from one another at the 0.05 level based on the Student-Newman-Keuls procedure (see legend; e.g., a →d indicates a significant difference betweenthese two groups in mean duration of time devoted to specified activity).

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