Abstract
We drew up patterns of workdays and holidays for married couples in order to study the characteristics of their respective free time and housework time. We also tried to clarify how the husband's time is affected by the wife or how the wife's time is affected by the husband. A certain number of married couples of the same family composition were selected in Higashi-Hiroshima City to make our time budget survey on Friday and Saturday. 1) On the part of husbands, an increase is recorded not only on their free time but also their time spent on housework on holiday. It is to be noted that the increase is not in the domain of cooking, cleaning and laundry; more time is recorded in the domain of shopping, child care and household chores. 2) By the pattern analysis, the wives' time on housework decreases somewhat on their husbands' holiday. 3) Husbands on holiday have almost the same free time whether their working wives are on holiday or not, while, on the contrary, wives tend to have less free time when their husbands are not on holiday. 4) It is true that, on holiday, neither the working wives nor the unemployed wives are engaged in any paid work, but it is to be noted that the employed wives spend less time on housework and more time on free activities.
