Parental Involvement and Work Schedules: Time with Children in the United States, Germany, Norway, and the United...

We examine variation in parents' time with children by work schedule in two-parent families, utilizing time use surveys from the United States (2003), Germany (2001), Norway (2000), and the United Kingdom (2000) (N = 6,835). We find that American fathers working the evening shift spend more time alone with children regardless of mothers' employment status, whereas this association is conditional on mothers' employment in the United Kingdom and Germany. We find no evidence that Norwegian fathers working the evening shift spend more time alone with children. We conclude that a consequence of evening work often viewed as positive for children - fathers spending more time with children - is sensitive to both household employment arrangements and country context.