Daily School Time, Workforce Participation, and Family Life: Time Spent in School as a Condition of Family Life

Abstract

When children are of a certain age, family life is strongly linked to the school. Because attending school is mandatory in all countries, school time imposes limits on family life and family vacations. On the one hand, school time makes other family activities impossible at that time; on the other hand, it frees parents from having to care for or supervise their children. And, in most countries, school time extends from early morning to late afternoon. Only some countries such as Austria, Germany, Greece, and, in part, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland have historically chosen shorter school times (Allemann-Ghionda 2005, pp. 77–78). Up to 2003, elementary and secondary school traditionally ended at lunchtime for the majority of students in Germany. But German school time has become a new issue during the last 10 years, because the policy on school time has changed through the implementation and expansion of so-called all-day schools providing lunch and an enlarged and changing time pattern (including extracurricular activities) in the afternoon. Two of the reasons for increasing the number of hours students (can) spend in school each day were the poor results of German students in international assessments of education standards and the demand for a better work–life balance for parents through all-day schools. As one can expect, such moves to change some aspects of society’s self-conception have raised a lot of discussions.