The Effects of the French 35-Hour Workweek Regulation on Intra Household Time-Allocation

Ariane Pailhé, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Anne Solaz, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Arthur Souletie, Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse Economique (ENSAE)

In France, the reduction of gender inequalities in domestic time is very slow, and mainly due to a decrease in the female participation to housework. However, France has undergone a major working time reform at the end of the 1990 that may affect male and female time use: the 35 hours legal workweek. This reform gives a natural time chock experiment to analyze how the relaxation of time constraints may affect the housework time allocation. Using the most recent French time-use survey (2010), we evaluate the effect of this reform by selecting working women and men who benefited from it (treated), and matching them with different control groups using propensity score methods. Men who benefit from the reform spend more time doing housework on weekdays, doing more male-oriented tasks, while women spend more time to care children. Finally, the reform has contributed to reduce gender inequalities in time use.