For better or worse? How more flexibility in working time arrangements and fatherhood affect men's working hours in Germany

Many fathers want to spend more time with their children and engage in household, but most of them continue to work full-time after the birth of a child. To better combine work and family, flexible working time arrangements might play a crucial role for fathers. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and fixed-effects regression models, we investigate the impact of flexible working time arrangements on actual working hours of men and fathers. A change from fixed to flexible arrangements is associated with an increase in working hours, but it is smaller for fathers than for non-fathers. Becoming a parent and changing into flexitime or self-determined working hours within the same year is associated with a short-term decrease in working hours. The study shows that employee-oriented working time arrangements help fathers to better combine work and family, but the decrease in working hours is still small.