Leisure smoothing: an alternative approach to analysing care policy

Traditionally, the success of child care policies has been studied in terms of their effects on labour force participation and fertility. We take a slightly different perspective by looking at the impact of child care policies on time allocated to leisure. If there is little time left for leisure after parenting tasks, this would indicate that parents have difficulty combining labour and care. Child care policies may potentially smooth leisure over the life course, ensuring that young parents do not face a time squeeze. Using data from the Harmonised European Time Use Surveys, perfect leisure smoothing is defined as parents having the same number of leisure hours as non-parents. The role of child care policy in smoothing leisure is analysed through a comparison across 15 European countries. The approach yields relevant results for understanding the costs of parenthood and the role of child care policy in time allocation of both mothers and fathers.