This contribution analyzes how men and women in France, Italy, Sweden, and the United States use their time over the life cycle and the extent to which societal and institutional contexts influence the gender division of labor. In order to test the hypothesis that contextual factors play a crucial role in shaping time allocation, this study considers countries that diverge considerably in terms of welfare state regime, employment and paid working time systems, family policies, and social norms. Using national time-use surveys for the late 1990s and early 2000s and regression techniques, the study not only finds large gender discrepancies in time use in each country at all stages of life but also determines that institutional contexts, in particular the design of family policies and employment regimes, do shape gender roles in different ways, and that Sweden displays the lowest gender gap in time allocation across the life course.