A note on Chinese couples’ time synchronization

Using 2008 China Time Use Survey data, this paper provides empirical evidence on whether and how Chinese couples synchronize their time use. The main findings are: (1) Chinese couples do deliberately coordinate their time use to gain more synchronous time in household work and leisure. (2) Non-couples also synchronize their activities if they live in the same household, but their time synchronization is much weaker than that of couples. (3) Couples’ synchronous time is significantly correlated to the husband’s and the wife’s labor supply and job characteristics, including wage rates, employment status, and occupation, as well as other personal characteristics and household demographics. This correlation differs between urban and rural couples. Generally speaking, urban couples are more similar to their Western counterparts. This paper is the first to provide a profile of couples’ coordination of time allocation in the socioeconomic context of a developing country, and it deepens the understanding of couples’ joint time allocation.