Intra-Household Work Time Synchronization

When considering benefits of marriage, economic theory usually stresses the possibility of joint consumption and the gains of division of labor supply. However individuals who are living together might simply derive utility from spending leisure time together. For these individuals it then pays off to synchronize work times with their partners. This paper tests if partners coordinate with each other and synchronize their work times. We use a matching procedure where couples are first matched to other couples and then switch partners. The empirical results suggest that (1) individuals who are married or are living together synchronize their work times although the effect is small, (2) more than 95 percent of the couples synchronize more than 80 percent of their possible work time hours and that (3) the main reason why couples are not able to synchronize their work times to a greater extend is because they have children