Working Time Typologies of Dual-Earner Couples in South Korea: a Multidimensional Approach to Hours, Schedules, and Location

With growing workplace flexibility, an increasing number of studies highlight the pivotal role of work schedules and location in understanding the resources and constraints for working families. This paper uses Latent Class Analysis (LCA) on data from the 2019 Korean Time Use Survey (KTUS) to identify a typology among heterosexual dual-earner couples in South Korea, by investigating multidimensional aspects of working time, encompassing working hours (number of hours worked), schedules (daytime vs. evening/night) and location (on-site vs. working from home). We identified four working time patterns: (1) “dual-standard”, (2) “dual-ideal”, (3) “mismatch”, and (4) “neo-traditional”. Our results show that women’s work adaptations, through reduced hours, evening/night schedules, or working from home, largely drive the differences between couple types. The presence of preschool children significantly alters couple dynamics, often pushing mothers out of the ‘ideal worker’ market and encouraging strategic desynchronisation of schedules between partners to manage childcare. By moving beyond the traditional part-time/full-time dichotomy, this paper provides a new way of approaching couples’ working patterns, which can potentially improve our understanding of work and family well-being.