Understanding the time-squeeze - Married couples' preferred and actual work-hour strategies

Many recent studies of the time-squeeze have used aggregate, trend data on work-hour behavior and inferred changing preferences among working men and women. This article begins with couple data and examines preferences as wel l as behavior in married-couple families. Work-hour behavior is conceptuali zed as an interaction between employee preferences, employer demands. and t he institutional context. The article's analyses clearly indicate that ther e is a considerable disparity between couples' self-reports of preferences and their actual behavior: These results suggest that long work weeks gener ally do not reflect employee preferences but may result from constraints an d demands imposed by the workplace. The rising sense of a time-squeeze in A merican society may stem from all-or-nothing assumptions about the nature a nd structure of work and the pressure to pur in long hours to be seen as co mmitted productive, and having the potential for advancement.