Women’s Time Poverty and Family Structure

Abstract

Discretionary time deficits are a result of a disproportionate amount of time spent in paid and unpaid work. Such time deficits are related to negative health outcomes. Discretionary time deficits may be influenced by family structure, because other adults can provide additional economic and time resources. Research to date does not examine differences in discretionary time deficits by family structure. Using the 2003-2010 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS), this study measures discretionary time deficits using a residual time poverty measure and investigates differences in time poverty rates by family structure for women in combination of two social roles—worker and parent. Never married women have significantly lower time poverty rates as compared with married women. There are no family structure differences in time poverty among married, cohabiting, and previously married employed mothers. Living with other employed adults significantly reduces the odds of time poverty for never married women.