Older Adults: International Differences in Housework and Leisure

Abstract

Population aging, longer life expectancy, and earlier retirement ages have heightened interest in patterns and determinants of active aging. Ample research documents both the declining labor force participation of older adults across Western industrialized countries and cross-national variation in levels and hours of employment, legal retirement ages, and pension policies. Yet, little is known about national differences in other types of time use between employed and nonemployed adults beyond midlife. Understanding the association of employment with socially productive and caring labor is important because of the benefits these activities have for psychological and cognitive well-being. The issue is vital for societies, as well, because assumptions about how employment affects non-work time are embedded in broad policy efforts to reverse patterns of early retirement. Among prime-age adults, employment is negatively associated with time spent on housework, leisure time and (in many cases) child care. Among older adults, employment is also consequential because it widens social networks and improves financial standing. Hence, employed older adults may spend more time in productive social and consumption activities compared with nonemployed adults. It is also likely that macro factors may condition the association between employment and age profiles of time use. Specifically, the regulation of working time, laws establishing legal retirement age, and public pension rules all vary cross-nationally and affect the environment in which older individuals make decisions about time allocations. This analysis uses nationally representative time diary data collected in the late 1990s and early 2000s from eight Western industrialized countries to examine how housework, active pursuits and passive leisure vary by age among employed and nonemployed women and men ages 45 and older. Included countries are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Norway, Sweden and Slovenia. Our countries have diverse time-related outcomes and varied policy environments, as well as available archived time diary data from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS).