Children, Kitchen, Church: Does Ethnicity Matter?

Ethnic differences in the allocation of non-market time are important, as they may shed more light on the integration level of ethnic minorities and on the factors that affect both household productivity and ethnic identity. In this paper we examine the role of ethnicity and gender by analyzing differences in the time spent on a range of activities employing the 2000 UK Time Use Survey. Based on the economics of religion and identity economic models, we hypothesize that if ethnic minority women have lower opportunity costs of time and a strong ‘ethnic’ or ‘traditionally female’ identity, they will engage more in ‘traditional’ home activities. Double-hurdle regression results indicate that while the effect for childcare is not significant when estimated for parents only, non-white women spend significantly more time on food management and particularly religious activities than white women, with the greatest effect of the latter being for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women.