A Research Note on the Cohabitation Gradient in Parents’ Childcare Time in Germany

We examined differences in time use for primary childcare between non-cohabiting and cohabiting mothers and fathers in Germany between 1991/92 and 2022. Facing the task of balancing paid and unpaid work on their own, non-cohabiting parents face different demands and time binds in allocating time for childcare compared to cohabiting parents. Current evidence how this translates into different patterns of time use for childcare is mixed and nonexistent for Germany. We applied OLS regression to estimate non-cohabiting (n=968) and cohabiting (4,486) mothers’ and fathers’ (n=76 and n=4,416, respectively) time use for primary childcare using time diary data of the four surveys of the German Time Use Study from 1991/1992, 2001/2002, 2012/2013, and 2022 (n=10,202 diaries for mothers, and n=8,388 diaries for fathers). After controlling for compositional differences, non-cohabiting mothers’ time use on primary childcare did not substantially differ from that of cohabiting mothers in either survey wave. Non-cohabiting fathers spent more time doing primary childcare than cohabiting fathers, although this finding rested on very small case numbers. Taken together, non-cohabiting mothers did not seem to reduce their time for childcare when compared to cohabiting mothers, whereas non-cohabiting fathers seemed to meet the need of more childcare, compared to cohabiting fathers.