Time alone or time together? The impact of family life cycle and education on couples’ time use in Sweden (1990-2010).

We investigate how partnered individuals spend their time, comparing the allocations spent alone, as a couple or together with children as a family, focusing on family life cycle, work status and education as primary determinants of time use. The analyses use data from the Swedish Time Use Surveys (1990/1991, 2000/2001, and 2010/2011) covering over 5,500 partnered individuals aged 20-55. Multivariate techniques are used to address: how the family life cycle affects who individuals spend their time with; the impact of education on the time couples spend together; whether these relationships have changed in recent decades. Results suggest that parents spend less time together as a couple than non-parents, but when we factor in family time, one-child parents spend similar quantities of time together as non-parents. Having two children impacts partner time negatively, but there seems little difference between having 2 or 3+ children concerning time with one’s partner or as a family, indicating returns to scale or some kind of specialization among parents with more than two children. Education is not a strong determinant of how much time couples spend together, but educational gradients exist in activities performed. Over time, we uncover a shift towards more family togetherness at the expense of time alone with one’s partner.