Your, My or Our Kids: Is There More Gender Inequality in Time Use in Stepfamilies than in Dual Parent Families?

Núria García Saladrigas, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Marc Ajenjo Cosp, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

The aim of this paper is to know whether stepfamilies are more egalitarian than dual parent families. We defined two typologies of stepfamilies taking into account who brings in the children, the woman or the man. We use the differences in time devoted to paid, unpaid work and leisure to measure the level of equality within couples. We identify how domestic tasks are distributed by gender in each stepfamily typology in comparison with dual parent families. We establish which variables are associated more with gender egalitarian arrangements. To perform this analysis, we will use the Spanish Time Use Survey (2009-10) and the Catalan version (2010-2011). Our preliminary results show that when woman brings in the children the couple is more egalitarian than dual parent families in unpaid work. That is due to their employment status, as dual earners are more equals. However, when man brings in there aren’t significative differences.