Changing trends in daily scheduling patterns of Korean mothers and subjective well-being

Recent increases in institutional childcare utilization among Korean mothers, particularly stay-at-home mothers, have transformed daily scheduling patterns. Analysis of Korean Time Use Survey data from 2009, 2014, and 2019 (N = 2517) examined how mothers with children aged 5 and younger organize their childcare and non-childcare activities during weekdays, tracked changes in these patterns, and investigated their relationship with subjective well-being. Through sequence and cluster analysis with dynamic Hamming distance, multinomial logistic regression, and path analysis, distinct scheduling clusters and their prevalence over time were identified. Results show that recent waves of stay-at-home mothers increasingly adopted scheduling patterns characterized by more uninterrupted time for housework, leisure, and personal care activities, which positively influenced their well-being through reduced time pressure. However, employed mothers showed no significant changes in their scheduling patterns during this period, despite the evolving societal context of childcare arrangements. While this trend represents meaningful progress for stay-at-home mothers who are often vulnerable to the stress of full-time caregiving, the unchanged situation of employed mothers warrants continued attention to ensure equitable improvements in daily scheduling patterns across different maternal employment statuses.