Page 387 - Contributed Paper Session (CPS) - Volume 6

CPS1993 Asmae Mhmmoudi

Couple’s time allocation to housework and
childcare: Moroccan evidence
Asmae Mhmmoudi
The High Commission for Planning, Rabat, Morocco

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to study the allocation of unpaid work time in
Moroccan couples using data from the National Time Use Survey (2012). By
including non-participants, censored regression model is used in order to
estimate the impact of socio economic background on housework and
childcare behavior’s. In addition, unpaid work is divided into ordinary
housework and childcare in order to investigate whether they behave
differently with housework and childcare. In general, the results show a
negative effect of urban area and a positive impact of children inversely related
to their ages though their impact is important within women than men.
Furthermore, the results of the estimation of housework are particularly the
same. However, when childcare is estimated separately, the presence of
children affects positively men childcare time allocation.

Keywords
housework and childcare; couple’s unpaid work; time use

1. Introduction
In terms of paid and unpaid work, Moroccan women and men work
approximately the same amount of hours. According to the National Time Use
Survey (2012), women and men spend 6 hours on paid and unpaid work. But
while men do most paid work, women are generally assigned to the home as
their occupational area.
To gain more insight into activities sharing within the household and
investigate gender specialization, attention is paid particularly to couples.
Specifically, the study focuses on time spent by couples on unpaid work which
combines housework and childcare, housework and childcare, and therefore
analyzing the factors affecting the three allocations.
Traditional analyses of unpaid work defined as time spent on housework
and childcare. Besides examining couples allocations to unpaid work, unpaid
work is spilt into housework and childcare in order to investigate whether a
structural difference exists between time spent doing housework and time
spent caring for children. The rationale behind this split is that the utility
associated with childcare is different from the utility generated by ordinary
housework.

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