How satisfied are spouses with their Leisure Time?. Evidence from Europe.

This paper first identifies the determinants of spouses satisfaction levels within the household with respect to their leisure time and, secondly, characterizes whether their preferences have some degree of altruistic or egoistic character as regards this particular satisfaction. To than end, it formulates a theoretical framework from the collective family model whose stochastic formulations are estimated for 14 EU countries by using the eight waves of the European Community Household Panel-ECHP (1994-2001). After showing that the IV Hausman-Taylor procedure is the chosen estimation method in the majority of countries, the general empirical results first reveal that the presence of children has a significantly negative impact on the leisure satisfaction of both spouses. Secondly, increases in individual incomes lead to lower own, leisure satisfaction levels. Finally, in regard to the interrelations between spouses, both husbands and wives show egoistic behaviour with respect to the labour and non-labour incomes (wage rate) of their respective spouses leisure satisfaction levels.