22Work–Family Interface and Time Allocationestablishment of the “Charter for Work–Life Balance” and the “Action Policy for Promoting Work–Life Balance” in 2007, the public and private sectors have been working together to help individuals achieve a better balance between work and family life. These measures aim to harmonize people’s work and family roles by improving the typical working styles for men and women, reviewing organizational culture, and raising individual awareness （Ikezoe, 2014）. However, the effectiveness of these approaches has been extremely limited.According to a Japanese study that examined the impact of work–life balance policies on time allocation, women’s involvement in paid employment increased not because of less domestic work but rather because of reduced time for leisure and other personal activities （Kohara & Maity, 2021）. The study also argued that work–life balance policies have little to no effect on men’s time allocation in their typical working day and cited the presence of strong social norms about gender roles as a major obstacle to achiev-ing balance. The impact of such a situation of the working generation in Japan cannot be overlooked with respect to the future prospects of young people. Therefore, this study focuses on college students who are at the preliminary stage of entry into professional society, where division of labor and gender norms are still deeply rooted, and examines how they envision their work–life balance in terms of future time allocation.Time allocation is a significant focal point when examining the interface between work and family life and devising steps to achieve a balance between the two. A well-known example is the time-use survey, which shows how much time people allocate to all activities in their everyday life. Despite variations in time-use classifications across surveys, a world-renowned time-use survey guideline by the International Labor Organization （ILO） advocates measuring a wide range of forms of work, such as unpaid work in households and community activities （ILO, 2018）. The ILO emphasizes the recognition, reduction, and redistribution of gender differences in the allocation of time between paid work and unpaid work as critical to the achievement of a gender-equal society. In Japan, however, the most recently conducted time-use survey showed that male employees are mainly responsible for paid work, spending a weekly average of 6 hours and 27 minutes in different forms of employment compared with 4 hours and 42 minutes for female employees （Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2022）. Meanwhile, the results for households with children under age 6 showed that the weekly average time for housework was 2 hours and 58 minutes for wives as opposed to 30 minutes for husbands, while the time for childcare was 3 hours and 54 minutes for wives versus 1 hour and 5 minutes for husbands. These suggest that women continue to perform most of the unpaid work （Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2022）. Overall, even the latest data indicate the persistence of the traditional gender division of labor in Japanese society.Studies argued that gender differences in time use lead to gender-specific variations in stress and conflict. For instance, working mothers spent more time than fathers on multitasking, mostly focusing on housework and childcare. In addition, mothers’ multitasking activities at home were linked to negative emotions, stress, and psychological distress, while this was not the case for fathers （Offer & Schneider,
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