The role of gender culture in predicting fathers’ time-use: Evidence from subnational disparities in Switzerland

The present study explores how much time fathers spend on physical and interactive childcare as a function of cultural differences between the 26 Swiss cantons. Two features are important: (1) the subnational design makes the dependency on culture salient and (2) the random forest models quantify the dependency even if it is complex and highly group-specific. The analysis is based on data from the Labour Force Survey about fathers of younger (n = 6985) and older children (n = 6932). Gender culture is construed as family and care ideals aligned on a spectrum between ‘male breadwinner/female part-time care provider’ and ‘dual breadwinner/external care’. The gender culture index turns out to be a high-ranking predictor of fathers’ time spent on interactive care, but not of time spent on physical care. The relation between gender culture and fathers’ time-use is positive with a slight U-shape. Moreover, the models show that 16 socio-demographic variables, together with gender culture, only predict a small part of the variation in fathers’ time-use.