Italian Families in the 21st Century: Gender Gaps in Time Use and Their Evolution

We estimate gender gaps in the allocation of time by Italian adults and their trends over the years 2002-2014. We disentangle time use in weekdays and weekend days and analyse separately full-time working parents with young children, representing the subsample more mindful of gender parity. In the complete sample, the positive gap (females-males) in time devoted to Household work and the negative gap in Market work and Leisure have narrowed, while the positive gap in time devoted to Child care (Basic and Quality time together) remained constant. In 2014, family duties still appear heavily unbalanced. In the subsample, full-time working mothers devote to total work (paid and unpaid) 13 hours per week more and to Leisure 11 hours per week less than their partners. On the positive side, the gender gap in Quality child care exhibits a reversed sign, which is driven by fathers' engagement in weekend days.