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Are Parents Investing Less in Children? Trends in Mothers’ and Fathers’ Time With Children
Abstract
In this study, time diary data are used to assess trends in mothers' and fathers' child care time from the mid-1960s to the late 1990s. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the results indicate that both mothers and fathers report spending greater amounts of time in child care activities in the late 1990s than in the "family-oriented" 1960s. For mothers, there was a 1965-75 decline in routine child care time and then a 1975-98 rebound along with a steady increase in time doing more developmental activities. For 1998 fathers report increased participation in routine child care as well as in more "fun" activities. The ratio of married mothers' to married fathers' time in child care declined in all primary child care activities. These results suggest that parents have undergone a behavioral change that has more than countered family change that might otherwise have reduced time with children.
... Women who perceived fathers as more engaged in their parental tasks may evaluate themselves as failing in their expected roles, given the social construction and validation of women's ability to multitask: namely, to perform well in professional, maternal, and domestic activities. This may contribute to lower parental satisfaction, as well as the perception of lack of control on parental activities [3,65]. Other explanations to current findings may rely on typical mothers' "managerial role" supervising fathers' involvement with childcare activities. ...
... Secondly, the cross-sectionality of the data limited the understanding of how these variables may evolve over time. This is particularly relevant given that maternal stress tends to be higher at child's early years, decreasing over time, e.g., [65]. Third, despite the effort to obtain a socially diverse sample, most of the participants were middle-class mothers with high education and similar working hours, limiting the understanding of the influence of demographic aspects, such as income, number of working hours, or education, which should be addressed by future research. ...
... This result may have implications for couple and parenting interventions. For instance, instead of interventions focusing on behavioral changes in interactions, they may want to target gendered dynamics of parenting as antecedents of maternal stress, e.g., [65]. Naturally, these changes should be supported at the social level with policies supporting shared and equitable parenting and less stressor environments for parenthood [3,72]. ...
In recent years mothers have been finding themselves overwhelmed by the need to balance work and maternal duties. Father involvement in childcare has been related to a decrease in mother's burden in childcare. This association is influenced by multiple aspects, such as the way parents share parenting perspectives and views about child rearing, i.e., coparenting. Nevertheless, the mediating role of coparenting on the association between father involvement and maternal stress has been overlooked. This will be addressed by the current study. A total of 254 Portuguese married/cohabiting mothers of preschool children reported on maternal stress, father involvement in caregiving, and coparenting. Data was collected in public and private schools through questionnaires and online through advertisements in social media. Results show that greater father involvement in direct care was associated with greater maternal stress, but this direction changes when mediated by cooperative coparenting. Moreover, results suggest that when mothers perceived less conflict in coparenting, greater father (in)direct care contributed to decreased maternal stress. The current study supports the notion that fathers involvement and parent's cooperation account to mothers' wellbeing, which will improve family dynamics.
... parenting. For example, even though tendencies for high-intensity parenting have led to an increase in maternal parenting time over the past few decades, the ratio of maternal to paternal parenting time has decreased in several Western countries over the same period [6,7]. There are similar patterns, if not as pronounced, in the Korean data, with fathers spending slightly more time on childcare and housework in 2014 than they did in 1999; during the same period, the childcare time of Korean mothers (already higher) increased at about the same rate while their housework time dropped slightly [8]. ...
... There are similar patterns, if not as pronounced, in the Korean data, with fathers spending slightly more time on childcare and housework in 2014 than they did in 1999; during the same period, the childcare time of Korean mothers (already higher) increased at about the same rate while their housework time dropped slightly [8]. Women and men spend their parenting time in different ways, however, with women providing more daily necessities (e.g., clothing, feeding, changing diapers) and men being more likely to engage children in play; this is true in both the U.S. and Korean samples [5][6][7][8][9][10]. ...
... According to this perspective, men and women behave differently because of frequent opportunities and strong expectations to "do" gender, or act out socially constructed gendered scripts [18]. The constructivist perspective connects differences in mothering and fathering to broader societal norms about acceptable gendered behaviors, both within and beyond families [6,7]. In contrast to the essentialist position, the constructivist perspective predicts that single mothers and single fathers will perform similar parenting functions simply because they must-that mothers and fathers will be equally concerned with providing the resources all children need (e.g., food, shelter, and clothing; education; emotional and financial support; discipline) but will lack an oppositegender partner with whom to act out a gendered script stating who should provide specific resources [3]. ...
While a large literature connects family environments characterized by access to two married biological parents to better child mental health outcomes, we know less about the mechanisms linking family structure to mental health outcomes for children living in other family structures. While essentialist theory suggests that access to both male and female parents will be an important determinant of child mental health, some research directly comparing single-mother and single-father families found no difference in child outcomes by parent gender, suggesting evidence for more structural theories of gender. However, most of this research uses data from Western countries and seldom extends to examining mental health outcomes. In this paper, we used data from a large, generalizable survey of Korean adolescents (the 2021 Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey) to compare the mental health of children living in families with two married biological parents, single mothers, and single fathers. Our findings underscore the importance of examining family environments in different contexts.
... Noonan y Glass (2012) indican que el teletrabajo no permite alcanzar el equilibrio entre la vida laboral y personal, sino que, por el contrario, refuerza la capacidad de las empresas de aumentar sus exigencias sobre las personas teletrabajadoras. En esta misma línea, Russell et al. (2009) apuntan que el teletrabajo aumenta la presión laboral deteriorando el equilibrio entre la vida laboral y la personal, ya que no solo aumenta las horas de trabajo, sino que también difumina el dominio del trabajo y la vida, lo que puede provocar la intrusión del trabajo en la vida familiar. ...
... El conflicto trabajo-familia afecta de forma dispar a las mujeres con hijos e hijas dependientes, ya que las madres realizan muchas más tareas de cuidado y domésticas que los padres (Bianchi et al., 2012;Sayer et al., 2004). Las madres en esta situación parecen valorar bastante el teletrabajo y están más dispuestas que las mujeres u hombres sin hijos a aceptar salarios más bajos a cambio de trabajar desde casa (Mas y Pallais, 2017). ...
... Aunque, en términos generales, se puede afirmar que el teletrabajo presenta consecuencias positivas para el equilibrio de la vida laboral y personal (Maruyama et al., 2009;Wheatley, 2012), existe evidencia que indica que también puede poner en peligro dicho equilibrio (Noonan y Glass, 2012;Russell et al., 2009). Es posible que los resultados contradictorios se deban a una diferente medición del equilibrio entre la vida personal y laboral. ...
Revisión de literatura multidisciplinaria sobre teletrabajo, identificando consecuencias positivas y negativas de la incorporación del teletrabajo en las organizaciones. El teletrabajo presenta retos y oportunidades en relación al equilibrio de la vida laboral y personal y del propio bienestar, siendo por lo tanto un desafío para la gestión de las organizaciones y los líderes.
... The gender perspective contends that the division of labor is based on demarcating "men's" time from "women's" time (Twiggs, McQuillan, and Ferree 1999). The amount of child care time and the specific tasks performed are highly gendered, with mothers spending more time on child care, especially on routine care, than fathers (Raley, Bianchi, and Wang 2012;Sayer, Bianchi, and Robinson 2004). In addition, contemporary work-family arrangements are configured by cultural mores about appropriate adult roles of women and men as well as gendered parenting ideologies. ...
... Despite progress toward gender equality in paid work, cultural norms that mothers are "natural" caregivers and fathers are primary breadwinners remain deeply entrenched (England 2011). Furthermore, the contemporary climate of parenting requires parents, especially mothers, to devote copious amounts of time to "cultivating" their children's mental and psychological development (Hays 1996;Prickett and Augustine 2021;Sayer et al. 2004). Research indicates that mothers remain more accountable than fathers for prioritizing time with children over competing employment demands (Hook et al. 2022). ...
... Our control variables include those documented to affect child care time (Sayer 2016;Sayer et al. 2004). We control for work hours, a well-studied temporal dimension of employment (Sayer and Gornick 2012). ...
Using the 2017–2018 American Time Use Survey, the authors investigate how a comprehensive set of temporal conditions of paid work affects parental child care time, with attention to gender and education. Temporal work conditions include access to leave, inflexible start and end times, short advance notice of work schedules, types of work shifts, and usual days worked. Among mothers, the only significant relationship is between usual days worked and routine care time. Among fathers, lacking access to paid leave and having inflexible start and end times are associated with reduced routine care time, and working on variable days of the week is related to less developmental care time. Temporal work conditions also shape the educational gap in parental child care time. Importantly, nonstandard shifts and working on weekends widen the educational gradient in mothers’ developmental care time. The findings imply that temporal work conditions amplify gender inequality in work-family lives and families as agents of class reproduction.
... Recent studies conducted in the West have shown that the traditional male-breadwinner and female-homemaker family is no longer the preferred family type (Raley et al. 2012;Sayer et al. 2004;Marsiglio 1991). With reference to parental involvement, research has indicated that both mothers and fathers are actively involved in childcare when the child is young (Garcia 2014; Sayer et al. 2004;Marsiglio 1991), and the gap between a father's and a mother's involvement narrows as the child grows older. ...
... Recent studies conducted in the West have shown that the traditional male-breadwinner and female-homemaker family is no longer the preferred family type (Raley et al. 2012;Sayer et al. 2004;Marsiglio 1991). With reference to parental involvement, research has indicated that both mothers and fathers are actively involved in childcare when the child is young (Garcia 2014; Sayer et al. 2004;Marsiglio 1991), and the gap between a father's and a mother's involvement narrows as the child grows older. It has been suggested that a father's solo childcare activities have been on the rise (Sayer et al. 2004;Aldous et al. 1998;Pleck 1997). ...
... With reference to parental involvement, research has indicated that both mothers and fathers are actively involved in childcare when the child is young (Garcia 2014; Sayer et al. 2004;Marsiglio 1991), and the gap between a father's and a mother's involvement narrows as the child grows older. It has been suggested that a father's solo childcare activities have been on the rise (Sayer et al. 2004;Aldous et al. 1998;Pleck 1997). Likewise, in the context of China, both parents are actively engaged in childcare activities. ...
Utilizing a survey conducted in 2016 by the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development, this study explores the effects of parenthood on the likelihood of the scientist’s first application for the Young Investigator Grant Program administered by the National Science Foundation of China. The analysis indicates that having a child negatively affects scientists’ probability of application. However, this parenthood effect varies by scientist’s gender and child’s age. While women scientists are more adversely affected by having a young child, men scientists are more adversely affected by having an older child. These gendered parenthood effects are moderated by changes in government policy. Both theoretical and policy implications are discussed.
... This study evaluates parent-child time for mothers and fathers from a child's infancy through age 18 in the United States. Parenting behaviors and practices, including the time parents and children spend together, shape a child's day-to-day development and well-being (Sayer et al. 2004). Playing, spending quality time, and having one-on-one experiences all relate to positive developmental outcomes. ...
... Parents convey skills and knowledge through their parenting behaviors and practices when spending time with their children (Kalil et al. 2012). Because parental time is a form of intergenerational transfer of human capital (Moroni et al. 2019), it is often termed an investment in children (Gibby et al. 2021;Sayer et al. 2004). Parents often use shared time to convey love, nurturance, and values (Milkie et al. 2015). ...
This study evaluated parent-child time from a child’s infancy to age 18 for mothers and fathers. Parent-child time remains a key input in child development. The theory on intergenerational transfers from parents to children posits that mother-child time and father-child time may adjust as children grow. This study used the nationally representative American Time Use Survey (2003–2019; N = 148,576) to study children ages 0–18 in a pooled cross-sectional sample. Using least squares regression, the study traced out parent-child contact, playing time, quality time, and one-on-one time, and tested differences between mothers and fathers. Mothers and fathers have provided substantial time investments in children of all ages. When children were young, mothers spent more time with children compared to fathers, highlighting a need for more nuanced discussions about differences in parenting between mothers and fathers. One-on-one time remained stable through late childhood and adolescence as parents prioritized focused interactions as children aged.
... The stereotypic characteristics of a group are related to the activities associated with their traditional roles and divisions of power in society. Therefore, as the distribution of positions and power in society and politics that men and women occupy have shifted (Bianchi et al., 2014;Blau, Brummund and Liu, 2013;Diekman and Goodfriend, 2006;Sayer, Bianchi and Robinson, 2004), the stereotypical characteristics associated with their genders may have shifted too. As such, stereotypes may inform both how men and women behave and the standards to which they are held by others, however, the content of these reasons. ...
... First, politicians are selected from a broader population, which has itself diverged from gender-stereotypical behaviours over time. In most advanced economies in recent decades, women's traditional role as care-givers has declined, and women's educational attainment, participation in the workforce, and occupancy of senior management positions have increased (Sayer, Bianchi and Robinson, 2004;Diekman and Goodfriend, 2006, 370). As societal gender roles have changed, women in the public have come to demonstrate increasingly agentic behaviours across a wide set of contexts and countries (Twenge, 2001;Leaper and Ayres, 2007, 357). ...
Do politicians behave in accordance with gender stereotypes? Does the pressure to do so shift by context and over time? Do voters uphold these stereotypes when they perceive and evaluate politicians' behaviour? Focusing on elites and voters in the United Kingdom, this thesis addresses these questions in three papers. The first paper analyses whether politicians express behavioural styles that are consistent with stereotypes, and how the pressure to do so may have diminished over time. I describe novel quantitative text analysis approaches to measure styles in parliamentary debates between 1997 and 2019 and show that women's styles have changed substantially over time, as they have increasingly adopted styles congruent with "masculine" stereotypes. The second paper investigates whether there are gender differences in the sets of issues that politicians raise, whether women do more to raise women's concerns and experiences across the policy process more broadly, and how the incentive to do so changes with increased political experience. Using quantitative text analysis techniques to measure the issues politicians raise, I find that, among junior politicians, women talk significantly more about stereotypically "feminine" issue areas, but also that this gender gap decreases markedly with increased seniority. However, women continue to refer to women's experiences in a wide range of issue areas throughout their careers. The third paper evaluates whether the styles politicians use influence how voters evaluate them, and whether this matters more for women than it does for men. In a novel survey experiment, I manipulate politician gender and argument style and find that style usage has important consequences for how voters evaluate politicians, but that the effects of style are not conditional on politician gender. Taken together, this thesis provides important theoretical arguments and empirical evidence concerning the dynamic validity of stereotypes in informing elite and voter behaviour in the UK.
... It is crucial to maintain a balance between the house and the work schedule. Sayer, Bianchi & Robinson, (2004) it is important for parents to give some time to their children to build strong ties. Mothers are seen as primary caregivers as they are the ones who handle the responsibilities and needs of a child in a different manner (Sayer, Bianchi & Robinson, 2004). ...
... Sayer, Bianchi & Robinson, (2004) it is important for parents to give some time to their children to build strong ties. Mothers are seen as primary caregivers as they are the ones who handle the responsibilities and needs of a child in a different manner (Sayer, Bianchi & Robinson, 2004). If there is a state of dis-balance in this dual role it may impact the child (house life) and the job (work-life). ...
Having a sense of satisfaction with work-life balance is ascertained in the present study. The work-life balance is studied with reference to the locus of control phenomenon. 200 working women were taken as a sample, from Pakistan in order to analyze the roles of internal and external locus of control in determining work life balance. The data is obtained using questionnaires along with the consent form to ensure confidentiality and the purpose of the study was briefed. The responses obtained were analyzed using Descriptive Statistics, Correlation, paired Sample t-test, Reliability analysis and Regression Analysis. The findings of the study demonstrated that women with external locus of control reported higher levels of satisfaction with respect to work-life balance whereas women with an internal locus of control reported slightly lower levels of satisfaction. It was because women with an internal locus of control tend to focus more on a child than work. Whereas women with an external locus of control manage work and family together. But working women with both internal and external locus of control are faced with stress that needs to be addressed.
... From a global perspective, fathers have become increasingly involved in and responsible for child rearing (Barker et al., 2021;Sayer et al., 2004). Subsequently, a growing body of research has emerged which aims to understanded the association between fathers' positivity and children's mental health (Behnke et al., 2011). ...
... Research suggests that: (1) self-report measurements are more likely to be impacted by various biases compared to observational measures (Baker & Brandon, 1990;Belli et al., 1999), (2) single-informant measurements tend to produce less accurate effect sizes than measures that are a composite of multiple reporters' inputs (De Los Reyes et al., 2015) and (3) older studies tend to use less sophisticated methodological and analytic methods than newer studies (Carter et al., 2004). It is also important to examine year of publication as a potential moderator because paternal involvement in childrearing has changed over decades (Sayer et al., 2004) and could be linked to a strengthening of associations. ...
Children whose mothers display more positivity during interactions tend to have better mental health. Some studies investigating associations between fathers’ positivity and children’s mental health have found small-to-moderate negative associations, while others show weak or no effects. The current study presents a series of meta-analyses (N = 59 studies) examining the association between paternal positivity and children’s emotional and behavioral functioning, both concurrently and longitudinally. The pooled effect sizes for concurrent internalizing problems (N = 30; r = −0.10), longitudinal internalizing problems (N = 8; r = −0.07), concurrent externalizing problems (N = 40; r = −0.15), and longitudinal externalizing problems (N = 19; r = −0.11) were all significant and small in magnitude. Moderator analyses revealed that the associations between fathers’ positivity and children’s concurrent internalizing problems and longitudinal externalizing problems were stronger among low and diverse socioeconomic samples compared to middle/upper income samples. Furthermore, associations with children’s externalizing problems were stronger in studies in which a single reporter assessed the outcome compared to multiple reporters, when questionnaires were used to measure parenting compared to interview or observation, and—for longitudinal associations only—in samples that had a larger proportion of females or older children. Results suggest that programs and policies that support fathers to have more positive interactions with their children could benefit children’s mental health.
... Tuntutan keterlibatan ayah pada zaman ini berbeda dengan tuntutan keterlibatan ayah pada saat teori time availability perspective dikemukakan. Jumlah waktu dan perhatian yang dibutuhkan agar anak dapat berkembang secara optimal telah meningkat (Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson, 2004). Orang tua lebih dituntut untuk terlibat dalam kehidupan anak mereka. ...
Paternal involvement is necessary for children ages 6-12 to thrive optimally. On the other hand,fathers face a challenge of having limited time to spend with their children as a result of being abreadwinner to fulfil the family’s needs. This research aimed to identify the relationship betweenthe time fathers spent at work and the paternal involvement of fathers with children ages 6-12years old. This was quantitative research with a correlational design. There were 50 fathers withchildren between the ages of 6-12, currently working, and living in Jabodetabek as participants.Father’s paternal involvement was measured using the Paternal Involvement Questionnaire. Thetime fathers spent working were collected using a time sheet. Participants recorded their dailyactivities within a 30-minute interval for 7 days. The hypothesis was tested using the Spearmancorrelation test which showed that there was no significant relationship between the time fathersspent at work and the paternal involvement of fathers with children ages 6-12 years old. This resultindicated that even if fathers spent more time working, this doesn’t mean they have lower paternalinvolvement than fathers who spent less time working. For future research, it is recommended toinvestigate further the relationship between father involvement, father's location of work, father'sassistance in taking care of children, and maternal gatekeeping.
... While compensating differentials theory assumes a general tradeoff between temporal flexibility and pay, it also posits that the utility of this flexibility differs between men and women (Glass and Camarigg 1992, p. 133). Because the gendered household division of labor compels women to spend more time than men on child rearing and other domestic chores (Sayer, Bianchi, and Robinson 2004;Sayer 2010), women are likely willing to trade more of their wages for temporal amenities at work. As a result, the pay penalties for time-related amenities-or the pay premiums for temporal demands-would be greater for women. ...
Despite research linking time-related work demands to inequality, especially between men and women, the literature lacks a comprehensive analysis of wage premiums and penalties associated with differing temporal demands. Using longitudinal data and fixed-effects models that help address unobserved heterogeneity among workers, we examine how temporal constraints imposed by occupations, such as extended working hours, high pressure from deadlines, a requirement for temporal coordination, a lack of freedom to structure a workday, and irregularity of work schedules, are associated with pay. We pay special attention to how these associations differ for workers with different gender and professional statuses. Unlike prior studies, our analysis of wage return to work time separates an individual’s working hours from an occupation’s expected work time. We find pay premiums attached to the requirements for long hours and meeting frequent deadlines, but we find wage penalties for occupations that require much temporal coordination and allow little work-structuring discretion. Schedule irregularity is linked to lower pay for women but higher pay for men. Thus, differing remuneration logics appear to apply to different time-related occupational demands. The analysis also indicates that the premium for the occupation’s work-time expectation is lower for women, particularly professional and managerial women, even after considering their actual working hours. We suggest that employers’ suspicion of women’s ability to comply with their occupation’s work-time norm, which is likely more pronounced for professional and managerial women, might contribute to these results.
... Given the morning and seasonal nature of farming, parents may have limited time with their children and require alternative non-parental childcare (e.g., supervision by older siblings). Evidence indicates different time patterns in childcare between working and non-working parents [6,[40][41][42][43]. However, the relationship between parental childcare time patterns and child development is complex and can vary depending on how parents manage time trade-offs and negotiate caregiving activities [43]. ...
Considerable literature from low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) links maternal employment to child nutritional status. However, less is known about the role of parental employment and occupation type in shaping child development outcomes. Additionally, little empirical work has examined the mechanisms through which parental occupation influences child outcomes. Our objective was to investigate the associations between maternal and paternal employment (comparing agricultural and non-agricultural employment) and child development and to examine childcare practices and women’s empowerment as potential mechanisms. We pooled nine Demographic and Health Surveys (Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Congo, Haiti, Rwanda, Senegal, Togo, and Uganda) with data on 8,516 children aged 36–59 months. We used generalised linear models to estimate associations between parental employment and child development, child stimulation (number of activities provided by the mother, father, and other household members), child supervision (not left alone or with older child for >1 hour), early childhood care and education programme (ECCE) attendance, and women’s empowerment. In our sample, all fathers and 85% of mothers were employed. In 40% of families, both parents were employed in agriculture. After adjusting for child, parental and household confounders, we found that parental agricultural employment, relative to non-agricultural employment, was associated with poorer child development (relative risk (RR) 0.86 (95% CI 0.80, 0.92), more child stimulation provided by other household members (mean difference (MD) 0.26 (95% CI 0.09, 0.42)), less adequate child supervision (RR, 0.83 (95% 0.78, 0.80)), less ECCE attendance (RR 0.46 (95% CI 0.39, 0.54)), and lower women’s empowerment (MD -1.01 (95% CI -1.18, -0.84)). Parental agricultural employment may be an important risk factor for early childhood development. More research using more comprehensive exposure and outcome measures is needed to unpack these complex relationships and to inform interventions and policies to support working parents in the agricultural sector with young children.
... Some studies find little evidence that increases in the minimum wage affects employment or time spent working (Card & Krueger, 1994;Cengiz et al., 2019;Dube et al., 2010;Lenhart, 2019) with others finding job losses or reductions in hours (Jardim et al., 2018;Neumark, 2018;Sabia, 2008). While increased time spent working may come at the expense of time spent with children, research finds that despite mothers' dramatic increase in paid work hours over the last quarter-century, their time with children has remained surprisingly consistent (Bianchi, 2000;Sayer et al., 2004). Among parents-particularly mothers-minimum wage increases may lead to spend more time with children (Gearhart et al., 2022;Hill & Romich, 2018). ...
This study used a differences-in-differences strategy with national time diary data from 2003 to 2018 to examine the effects of minimum wage changes on parents’ time with children and in child-related activities. Findings indicate that a $1 increase in the minimum wage was associated with a small increase (2.6%) in the likelihood parents with one or more children under age 16 spent time actively caring for or helping children on weekends, and in more total time with children (a 2% increase in secondary child care time). In general, coefficients were larger for mothers’ time use, particularly non-employed mothers, with potential implications for gender disparities in caregiving. Unmarried parents and parents of color showed increases in their time spent in activities related to children’s health (~55% increase). Mothers showed an increase (8%) in the likelihood they spent any time in child education-related activities, and increases in child care time appeared concentrated among parents whose youngest child was 6–15 years of age. Findings suggest that increases in state minimum wages may lead to small increases in parents’ time investments in children, with some variation among subgroups.
... Masculine involvement is particularly low in areas which receive little recognition, such as caring for the elderly and for disabled adults (Torns, 2008). By contrast, men engage more in fun and game activities, which are associated with childcare (Sayer et al., 2004). The times at which domestic and care work occur is also an important factor when determining the implication of men in the domestic sphere. ...
This article critically engages with the practices and discourses around fatherhood of men who had experienced unemployment. Comparing and contrasting men’s testimonies with those of their partners was a key feature of the research design. We conducted in-depth interviews in the Basque Country (Spain) with 15 heterosexual couples, aged 30–50, with children under 12. In every case, the father had been unemployed for a period of at least six months. The results indicate that unemployment affected fathers’ involvement in care in very different ways. In some cases, it promoted co-responsibility and a reinterpretation of masculinity, while in others traditional gender roles remained uncontested. Furthermore, we identified tensions between behaviour, on one hand, and expressed preferences, expectations and self-perceptions, on the other. To capture this diversity, we made use of three categories in our analysis: primary caregiving fathers, helper fathers and breadwinner fathers. Employing a broad and multidimensional definition of care, this research facilitates an interrogation of privilege and masculinity, and the extent to which these are challenged in contexts where men are forced to respond to a disruption of their lifestyles due to unemployment.
... As increasing proportions of women achieve higher education and participate in the labor force, traditional family and gender role attitudes have come under significant challenge, both as an ideology (Esping-Andersen and Billari 2015; Goldscheider, Bernhardt, and Lappegård 2015;McDonald 2000) and as a practice (Oshio, Nozaki, and Kobayashi 2013;Sayer, Bianchi, and Robinson 2004). The traditional concept of patriarchy, which supports the male breadwinner and female homemaker model, runs counter to advancements in women's socioeconomic status (Koo 2019). ...
... Because parental time with children is a key input in a child's development (Kalil et al. 2012;Moroni et al. 2019), it is often termed an "investment" in children (Sayer et al. 2004). The idea that parental time investments shape child outcomes is rooted in the concept that parents convey skills and knowledge through their parenting behaviors and practices when spending time with their children. ...
This study describes how parental time investments in children in immigrant families vary according to children’s citizenship status. In families with multiple children, parents make allocation decisions about how to invest in each child. In immigrant households, a child’s citizenship status may shape parental time allocations because of how this status relates to a child’s prospects for socioeconomic mobility. It is unclear whether parents reinforce citizenship differences among siblings, compensate for these differences, or treat all siblings equally regardless of citizenship status. Moreover, past empirical research has not investigated differences in parental time investments in siblings with different citizenship statuses. To evaluate differential time investments in children based on citizenship, we conduct a quantitative analysis using data from the American Time Use Survey from 2003–2019 and focus on children in immigrant households with at least two children (N = 13,012). Our research shows that parents spend more time with children who have citizenship, but this result is primarily explained by a child’s age and birth order. Our study provides a basis for further inquiry on how legal contexts shaping socioeconomic mobility may influence micro-level family processes in immigrant households.
... Reflecting changing gender and societal expectations, recent work evidences more balanced caregiving between mothers and fathers (Pleck, 2010;Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson, 2004), necessitating the expansion of fathering scholarship to better reflect fathers' experiences. Scholars have recognized this need, advocating for father-centric research examining fatherhood's meaning for men and consequences for men's development (Palkovitz & Hull, 2018;Settersten & Cancel-Tirado, 2010). ...
Though fatherhood research has recently burgeoned, extant literature primarily focuses on father characteristics and father–child interactions. A critical gap remains in understanding fathers’ emotional experiences. Using the Parent Development Interview-Revised, 74 interviews with fathers of toddlers were coded using questions about six positive and negative emotions: joy, pain/difficulty, happiness, pride, annoyance/anger, and guilt. Themes reflected 4 overarching concepts: father–child relationship, child-focused experiences, father-focused experiences, and the fatherhood role or identity. Frequent themes included: watching their children grow, sharing affection and love, children’s behavior, and spending time away. Some codes appeared especially salient for some fathers, such as growth in their co-parenting relationship and comparison to their family of origin. This study describes men who are deeply invested in fatherhood, highlighting the importance of research that goes beyond documenting fathers’ influence on their children, and instead emphasizes the inherent value of fathers and in understanding fathers’ experiences.
... For decades, scholars have sought to uncover sources of variation in the degree to which women take on an unequal proportion of housework and childcare, examining differences across space (Craig & Mullan, 2011), across time (Sayer et al., 2004), and across parental education levels (Dotti Sani & Treas, 2016). Within this body of work, attention has recently shifted specifically to the cognitive dimension of housework and childcare, that is, the often invisible "management" tasks of running the family home (Ciciolla & Luthar, 2019;Daminger, 2019;Offer, 2014). ...
Objective: This paper asks how evolving contact and gendered working lives, gendered identities, and conflict and parental relationships influence cognitive labour in separated families. Background: The fact that the often-invisible work of planning, researching, and executing decisions concerning children and household maintenance is borne by women/mothers, receives growing research attention, yet, the bulk of this research focuses on the gendered division of the mental load in intact families. Given the high prevalence of separated families with high levels of father contact, more work is needed to understand how cognitive labour is divided by parents residing in separate households. Method: This paper draws on 31 semi-structured interviews of separated parents, including 7 former couples. Interviews were sampled from a nationally representative longitudinal survey, Understanding Society, professionally transcribed and thematically analysed with Nvivo. Results: Analysing the interviews reveals both continuity and change in the division of the mental load following separation. For some families, gendered identities and working lives continue to justify an unequal division of the mental load, even when children spend large amounts of time solely with fathers. In others, conflict can reduce communication between parents, either increasing fathers cognitive labour through parallel parenting or decreasing it when fathers are excluded from decision-making altogether. Finally, separation can present a turning point where working lives and identities are re-evaluated, and the mental load can be negotiated anew. Conclusion: We provide new evidence that the mental load remains gendered even among those practicing a relatively "modern" family form of shared care post-separation, while highlighting possibilities for variation and change.
... We also are interested in whether some parents were more impacted by the pandemic since existing research suggests that parenting stress varies (Lee et al., 2013;Pollmann-Schult, 2014;Nomaguchi and Brown, 2011). Firstly, due to the stereotyped societal expectations of the male breadwinner and female caregiver in most countries and cultures, mothers are often the primary caregiver (Sayer et al., 2004), thus they may be more vulnerable during the pandemic. Emerging evidence showed that women provided more childcare than men during the COVID-19 pandemic (Collins et al., 2021;Zamarro and Prados, 2021), and mothers also reported higher levels of parental stress and parenting-related exhaustion than fathers (Giannotti et al., 2022;Johnson et al., 2020;Marchetti et al., 2020). ...
Rationale : Parenting is a demanding task associated with parents’ mental health, which is likely exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The present study investigated daily parenting hassles and their effects on parents’ mental health during this period.
Methods : A total of 7,314 parents with children aged 3–14 years old completed a sociodemographic questionnaire and reported on their perceived daily parenting hassles, mental health, family support, and co-parenting during the COVID-19 school
closure.
Results : Most parents (73.4%) showed different degrees of daily hassles, and a relatively higher prevalence of depression (18.7%), anxiety (22.4%), and stress (12.1%) were found. Motherhood, parents’ younger ages, lower education parents, job loss, having younger children, boys, and multiple children were associated with elevated daily parenting hassles and mental health issues. Importantly, daily parenting hassles were uniquely associated with mental health problems after controlling for various sociodemographic characteristics, family support, and co-parenting. Furthermore, family support and co-parenting can attenuate daily parenting hassles, which, in turn, protect parents’ mental health.
Conclusions : The findings of the present study underscore the critical need to consider daily parenting hassles and their effects on the mental health of parents during the COVID-19 lockdown. The present study also outlines potential factors (family support and co-parenting) that attenuate parents’ daily parenting hassles and
protect their mental health during the COVID-19 lockdown.
... Second, we focus not on amount of time spent, but on how housework is actually shared between household members, including co-resident young people. The vast majority of previous investigation into unpaid work concentrates on couples (Punch 2001), and relies on either time diary records of individual unrelated men and women (see for example Hook 2006;Sayer, Bianchi and Robinson 2004) or upon one partner's estimation, which may be subject to reporting bias (see for example Fuwa 2004;Geist 2005). Our analyses improve on these approaches as they are based on independent records of the actual time allocation of fathers, mothers and young people in the same household, from which we derive their relative shares. ...
... Summarizing the existing points of view, we can say that the determinants of time allocated to parenting can be considered from two perspectives: the structural (compositional or contextual) point of view (a general increase in the participation of women in the workforce, a decrease in the birth rate, an increase in the level of education, income and other factors) (NEILSON; STANFORS, 2014), and the point of view of the dynamics of behavioral practices of a given society (which are influenced by accepted norms of gender behavior, value systems, cultural discourse among others) (SAYER et al., 2004). ...
This study aims to measure the time allocated to child raising using parents’ self-assessment and the criterion of subjective time sufficiency or insufficiency. We surveyed 545 Russian parents from the Ural region and used factor analysis to identify the main determinants that affect the self-assessment of time allocated to parenting. We found that parents in the Russian Ural region believe they do not spend enough time with their children. Reasons for the insufficient amount of time allocated to parenting are the following: overload of labor duties at home and at work, psychological causes of intergenerational interaction, external reasons − studies, poor health, the need to care for other relatives and so on.
How do individuals’ employment or financial resources affect childbearing in Finland? Are these resources equally important to men and women, or in couples? This study examines the relationship between individuals’ socioeconomic resources – employment, education, and income– and entry into parenthood. The results show that employment stability is a key prerequisite for family formation among young adults in Finland. Being unemployed or having fewer financialresources is related to postponement of parenthood in most population groups, notably among those who are approaching age 30, or above it. A lack of economic resources appears to be an obstacle to family formation at several stages: first through union formation, and next, within unions. The associations are very similar among men and women, indicating that policies that support gender equality in employment are advantageous to childbearing.
Time spent working or caring for children may reduce the time available for undertaking time-intensive health behaviors. We test competing perspectives about how work hours and the number of children of specific ages will be associated with married or cohabiting men's and women's sleep duration and physical activity. We use data from the 2004 to 2017 waves of the National Health Interview Survey (N = 154,580). In support of the "time availability" perspective, longer work hours and children of any age are associated with shorter sleep hours. However, in support of the "time deepening" perspective, additional hours of work beyond 40 hours per week and children over the age of five are not associated with reduced physical activity. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find gender differences in support of our theories. Our results suggest that the economy of time works differently for sleep and exercise.
This edited volume aims to make a scientific contribution to population studies from an interdisciplinary perspective under the general title of population and society in Turkey. The book, which includes articles on different topics, aims to contribute to researchers and graduate students and to support the work of policy makers and non-governmental organisations with the scientific up-to-date data it provides.
German family policy was dramatically reformed in the 2000s because of dual reforms to parental leave and childcare provision. While considerable evidence has suggested the reforms affected employment and other outcomes, this article asks what the consequences of these reforms are for the family, specifically for patterns of work‐family arrangements. Moreover, it asks how education matters for work‐family arrangements post‐reform. Using German Socio‐Economic Panel data, I show that college‐educated mothers giving birth to their first child after the reforms earned roughly half of household income if they benefited from expanded local childcare access. By contrast, in areas with lower childcare availability, even among the college‐educated, mothers' earnings resemble pre‐reform patterns, where mothers earn between a quarter to a third of household income. Therefore, the reforms contributed to greater differences in family structures based on the education. One interpretation of these findings is that the status reproducing nature of the Continental welfare states has recalibrated for the modern age, de‐gendered for those with the greatest labour market returns.
The sudden and unanticipated shocks to employment and the almost total retreat into the domestic sphere caused by the COVID‐19 lockdowns provide a unique opportunity to explore the resilience of the three classical theoretical paradigms of the gendered division of labor within couples, that is, the time availability theory, the relative resource theory, and the “doing gender” perspective. Accordingly, this article analyzes how socioeconomic differences shaped the gendered division of labor during the first lockdown in France. We use a mixed‐methods approach that combines representative quantitative data drawn from the Epidemiology and Living Conditions (EpiCOV) survey of EpiCOV in France during the COVID‐19 pandemic and qualitative data from in‐depth interviews of French families collected throughout the spring 2020 lockdown. Over the period, the heavy domestic and parental workload and its division between partners were mainly determined by employment status. However, the influence of time availability on the division of labor was mitigated by the doing gender mechanisms, whatever the partners' relative resources. The gender division of housework and childcare persisted, and the tasks performed differed, parenting tasks especially. Even if highly‐educated mothers were able to negotiate their partner's investment in domestic and parental work, the division of labor remained unequal. Mothers remained in charge of organizing housework and childcare, and this may have altered their subjective experience of lockdown, especially for those embedded in the most egalitarian configurations.
Mothers did a disproportionate share of the child care during the COVID-19 pandemic—an arrangement that negatively impacted their careers, relationships, and well-being. How did mothers account for these unequal roles? Through interviews and surveys with 55 mothers (and 14 fathers) in different-sex, prepandemic dual-earner couples, we found that mothers (and fathers) justified unequal parenting arrangements based on gendered structural and cultural conditions that made mothers’ disproportionate labor seem “practical” and “natural.” These justifications allowed couples to rely on mothers by default rather than through active negotiation. As a result, many mothers did not feel entitled to seek support with child care from fathers or nonparental caregivers and experienced guilt if they did so. These findings help explain why many mothers have not reentered the workforce, why fathers’ involvement at home waned as the pandemic progressed, and why the pandemic led to growing preferences for inegalitarian divisions of domestic and paid labor.
Esta cartilla pretende informar sobre los resultados de un estudio cuantitativo de los efectos del Covid-19 y parentalidad en las vidas laborales y domesticas de científic@s Colombian@s.
The notion that U.S. mothers with minor children are less happy and more depressed than nonmothers largely relies on data collected in the 1990s or earlier. Although the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic brought much attention to the stressfulness of parenting, we lack knowledge of how mothers fared relative to nonmothers in the 2000s and 2010s, before the pandemic. The authors investigate trends in the parenthood gap in happiness, depression, and self-rated health among women aged 18 to 59 years, using the 1996 to 2018 General Social Survey ( n = 13,254) and the 1997 to 2018 National Health Interview Survey ( n = 263,110). Results indicate that twenty-first-century mothers with younger children were better off than nonmothers on two measures, reporting less depression and better health. Mothers’ “depression advantage” grew across this time. However, mothers with older children reported less happiness than nonmothers, a continued trend from the 1990s. The study underscores the importance of examining various well-being indicators across the changing contexts of parenting.
Time use studies find that employed mothers reduce their parental childcare time by much less than an hour for every hour they spend in market work. This chapter uses data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 1997 (4059 randomly selected households) to investigate how employed mothers manage to avoid a one-for-one trade-off between work and childcare. It compares the time allocation of employed fathers, employed mothers and non-employed mothers and finds that parents use non-parental childcare to reschedule as well as to replace their own childcare, that employed mothers reschedule activities from weekdays to weekends or to earlier or later in the day, and spend less time than other mothers in housework, childfree leisure and personal care.
The just organization of caregiving labor – in the workplace and in the home – is critical to democratic vitality. The Covid-19 pandemic rendered visible the failure of US law and policy to distribute care work fairly and to recognize its value. Lack of support for caregivers has jeopardized social reproduction and deepened gender, race, and class inequalities. The care crisis, however, was not an inevitability. From the New Deal through the close of the twentieth century, labor feminists pursued social supports for care. They advocated along three axes: public entitlements for care in the home, workplace regulation supportive of working caregivers, and the collective organization of paid care workers. The history of this advocacy helps to illuminate the path toward more robust forms of social citizenship.
We are currently witnessing some of the greatest challenges to democratic regimes since the 1930s, with democratic institutions losing ground in numerous countries throughout the world. At the same time organized labor has been under assault worldwide, with steep declines in union density rates. In this timely handbook, scholars in law, political science, history, and sociology explore the role of organized labor and the working class in the historical construction of democracy. They analyze recent patterns of democratic erosion, examining its relationship to the political weakening of organized labor and, in several cases, the political alliances forged by workers in contexts of nationalist or populist political mobilization. The volume breaks new ground in providing cross-regional perspectives on labor and democracy in the United States, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Beyond academia, this volume is essential reading for policymakers and practitioners concerned with the relationship between labor and democracy.
The institution of marriage is at a crossroads. Across most of the industrialized world, unmarried cohabitation and nonmarital births have skyrocketed while marriage rates are at record lows. These trends mask a new, idealized vision of marriage as a marker of success as well as a growing class divide in childbearing behavior: the children of better educated, wealthier individuals continue to be born into relatively stable marital unions while the children of less educated, poorer individuals are increasingly born and raised in more fragile, nonmarital households. The interdisciplinary approach offered by this edited volume provides tools to inform the debate and to assist policy makers in resolving questions about marriage at a critical juncture. Drawing on the expertise of social scientists and legal scholars, the book will be a key text for anyone who seeks to understand marriage as a social institution and to evaluate proposals for marriage reform.
The institution of marriage is at a crossroads. Across most of the industrialized world, unmarried cohabitation and nonmarital births have skyrocketed while marriage rates are at record lows. These trends mask a new, idealized vision of marriage as a marker of success as well as a growing class divide in childbearing behavior: the children of better educated, wealthier individuals continue to be born into relatively stable marital unions while the children of less educated, poorer individuals are increasingly born and raised in more fragile, nonmarital households. The interdisciplinary approach offered by this edited volume provides tools to inform the debate and to assist policy makers in resolving questions about marriage at a critical juncture. Drawing on the expertise of social scientists and legal scholars, the book will be a key text for anyone who seeks to understand marriage as a social institution and to evaluate proposals for marriage reform.
Throughout distressing cultural battles and disputes over child care, each side claims to have the best interests of children at heart. While developmental scientists have concrete evidence for this debate, their message is often lost or muddied by the media. To demonstrate why this problem matters, this book examines the extensive media coverage of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development – a long-running government-funded study that provides the most comprehensive look at the effects of early child care on American children. Analyses of newspaper articles and interviews with scientists and journalists reveal what happens to science in the public sphere and how children's issues can be used to question parents' choices. By shining light on these issues, the authors bring clarity to the enduring child care wars while providing recommendations for how scientists and the media can talk to – rather than past – each other.
To effectively cultivate systems of equity, it is important to not only understand the experiences of those who are most affected by inequity but also of those who are in positions of power and privilege. This study explores how faculty men with children navigated the pandemic experience. Two major thematic findings emerged including ‘Not (as) Interrupted’ and ‘“I” feel supported’. These findings suggest that academic fathers may be emerging from the pandemic positioned differently than academic mothers. This research has implications for higher education administrators and faculty in the shaping of practice and policies aimed at equitably supporting faculty post‐pandemic.
This comment uses more recently available data to examine the robustness of the converging trends in developmental child care time by parental education argued by Cha & Park (2021, Journal of Marriage and Family, 83, 769–785). Drawing on the 2003–2017 American Time Use Survey, Cha and Park concluded that the educational gaps in developmental child care time have converged and called for future research on its implications for social egalitarianism. This conclusion must be supported by sufficient evidence showing persistent converging trends in the subsequent years. Otherwise, Cha and Park's (2021) conclusion of greater equality in parents' developmental child care time does not provide a basis for future studies. Using the same data, sampling, measures, and analytic strategy, the comment first replicates the results from the original study between 2003 and 2017 and then extends to 2020, which is the most recent available time‐use data upon submission. Descriptive analysis shows that the least‐educated fathers' time spent on developmental child care was highly volatile after 2015. In multivariate analysis, the interaction terms between fathers' education and year in OLS models are minimal and not statistically significant when extends to 2020, indicating no sufficient evidence to support Cha and Park's (2021) conclusion for fathers. While the educational gaps in developmental child care time among mothers continue to converge, the same trend does not show for fathers. The inconsistent conclusions suggest it is premature to announce greater equality in parental child care time by parental education.
A growing body of literature links particular parenting practices with attachment orientations in the Western societies. However, the effects of cultural differences on such linkages have not been adequately addressed in the literature on attachment. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the relationship between child-rearing behaviors and adult attachment orientations in Bosnian and Turkish parents. 227 parents (124 Bosnian and 111 Turkish) aged 25-45 years were selected by multiple cluster sampling method. They filled out the following questionnaires: ‘Child Rearing Behaviors Questionnaire' and ‘Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised Questionnaire (ECRI II).' The most interesting finding is that the attachment orientations were not a predictor of any childrearing behaviors in both countries. These results present the consequences of attachment and parenting issues in non-western societies.
This study investigated the content of parenting information shared on social media by identifying the range and frequency of topics shared by parenting-focused accounts on Twitter. Using the Twitter API, a universe of 675,069 tweets were gathered from 74 of the most-followed parenting-focused accounts, or “hubs,” from January 2016 to June 2018. Using a custom, semi-automated topic modeling approach, we identified the topics – and subtopics within topics – parenting hubs shared with their followers and investigated whether any meaningful differences in topical focus existed between accounts targeting mothers versus fathers. Results indicate that over one third of tweets were about Parenting Behavior and nearly one quarter about Health, with Entertainment, School and Motherhood and Fatherhood generally as less tweeted topics. Mother-focused accounts tweeted more about Health than father-focused accounts, which tweeted more than others about Entertainment. Implications for future parenting and social media research are discussed.
The birth of a new child continues to exacerbate gender specialization among different-sex couples. This study considers the potential of paid leave policies to intervene in this key life-course juncture and promote greater gender equality in paid and unpaid work. While previous research has examined the impact of paid leave policies on paid or unpaid work among mothers or fathers separately, this study provides an integrated framework and examines comprehensively how these benefits shape both mothers' and fathers' paid and unpaid work outcomes. I use data from the Current Population Survey 1990–2020 and the American Time Use Survey 2003–2019 and quasi-experimental differences-in-differences models to examine the impact of the introduction of paid leave policies in California and New Jersey. The results show that the policy increased mothers’ and fathers’ short-term time off from paid work after new births, increased mothers’ care work more than fathers’, and increased fathers’ housework more than mothers’. I call this pattern differentiated egalitarianism, denoting changes increasing men’s involvement in housework while simultaneously reproducing mothers’ primary caregiver role.
Introduction. Scientific study of religious aspect of fatherhood is actual due to the significance of the man’s role in sustainability of parental and family relations in conditions of a demographic crisis. The aim of the article is to analyze a range of reproductive, generative and marital behavior of men defined by their religious identification as a factor that influences the formation of a family image that is shared in traditional religions.
Materials and Methods. Empirical basis of the study includes data of social survey held by authors in two subjects of Russian Federation – in the Republic of Tatarstan and Vologda Region. The object of the study – men at the age of 18‒49, the sample – 1 353 men. Use of comparative, economic-statistical and factor methods of analysis allowed to define the level of the influence of men’s religious identity on their generative behavior.
Results. The calculation of average values has defined comparative superiority of the value of the family in comparison with the value of work in all subgroups of the surveyed men, regardless of their involvement in the religious context, however, among religious men the family in the structure of life values is more vivid. Some peculiarities of the role distribution in families, expectations towards the number of children in the family, orientation towards upbringing and complicity in the growing up of children in the family, determination of the image of a father and correspondingly behavior of the respondents were determined. Men’s religious identity influences their desire to have bigger number of children: Christians tend to have two children while Muslims want to have more than two children. The percentage of men who desire to become a father of many children is less among those who don’t believe in God.
Discussion and Conclusion. The study of the influence of men’s religious identity on generative behavior allowed to reveal factors causing formation of reproductive behavior. This data will help to work out measures to increase the birth rate into account the role of fatherhood institute and confessional identity of a man. Results of the research can be used in the process of developing measures for the implementation of demographic and family policy.
Although debates over the growth of work-family conflict tend to center on the experiences of employed parents and dual-earner couples, analyses of trends in working time typically focus on individual workers. We reexamine the debates regarding the growth of working versus leisure time and then analyze trends in working time by focusing on the combined paid work of family members. We use the 1970 and 1997 Current Population Surveys to investigate the distribution of working hours across dual-earner couples and single parents. Our findings demonstrate that the shift from male-breadwinner to dual-earner couples and single-parent households, rather than changes in the length of the workweek per se, have created growing concern for balancing work and family. This analysis suggests that debates over conflicts between work and family need to focus more on the combined work schedules of family members than on changes in individual work patterns.
This paper addresses the question of how families manage the after-school care of younger (11–14) and older (15–17) teenage children. I examine how mothers of teenage children view their after-school care, and how they coordinate their paid work and their family responsibilities to accommodate the lives of their older children. How families, particularly mothers, manage the after-school care of older children is a question that few researchers or policymakers have addressed. In this paper I argue that this is a topic which not only has important policy implications, but also raises basic issues about how work and family are structured in the United States.
This paper analyses the labour supply behaviour of households in Denmark and Britain. It employs models in which the preferences of individuals within the household are explicitly represented. The households are then assumed to decide on their labour supply in a Pareto Optimal fashion. Describing the structure of the household decision in this way allows preliminary results to be obtained on the internal weighting of utilities within the household. Copyright 2001 by Taylor and Francis Group
Explains the trends since World War II in fertility, marriage, divorce, family size orientation, and contraception in the five major non-European industrialized countries. By emphasizing the changing social construction of parenthood, the framework fills a gap left by more conventional approaches. -from Author
This article examines how much fathers participate in child care, an important component of domestic duties, and factors related to it. It has the advantage of longitudinal data, so that it is possible to look at changes in fathers' participation and factors affecting changes and continuities over time. The data come from the 1987-1988 and 1992-1993 National Surveys of Families and Households. The sample is restricted to White, two-parent families with at least one child younger than 5 years of age at the time of the first survey. The analyses control for the number of children and the gender of the child for whom there is fathering information. Based on prior theories and research, the study variables related to fathers' child care include performance of household tasks, their marital quality, gender role ideologies, perceptions of the fairness of the division of domestic labor, and the mothers' child-care hours. The labor-force variables are the husbands' and wives' hours of paid employment, as well as the earned incomes of husbands and wives. The findings indicate that hours on the job keep some men from active fathering, but if they begin taking care of young children, a continuing pattern is established. Mothers' child-care hours are positively related to fathers' child care, and fathers do more with sons. The discussion places the findings in theoretical context.
Using a unique data source on family time use both in and outside the home, we obtained estimates of parental time allocated to preschool children for several socioeconomic status groups. We find that while high status mothers have a relatively high potential wage, they spend from two to three times as much time in preschool child care as do low status mothers. To the extent that this class differential in time investments to preschool children influences cognitive achievement, our results indicate again that equal educational programs across different school systems need not imply equal educational opportunity.
Has fatherhood changed in the wake of the social and economic changes that have taken place in America since the turn of the century? Although the evidence is scant, it would appear that the answer to this question is both yes and no. Yes, fatherhood has changed, if one looks at the culture of fatherhood--the ideologies surrounding men's parenting. No, fatherhood has not changed (at least significantly), if one looks at the conduct of fatherhood--how fathers behave vis-a-vis their children. The consequences of this asynchrony between the culture and conduct of fatherhood are, as this article demonstrates, both positive and negative and need to be addressed by family researchers and practitioners alike.
This article defines responsible fathering, summarizes the relevant research, and presents a systemic, ecological framework to organize research and programmatic work in this area. A principal finding is that fathering is influenced, even more than mothering, by contextual factors in the family and community.
Numerous researchers have examined the incidence, correlates, and predictors of childlessness. Few, however, have examined changes in intended childlessness because the longitudinal data required to track these changes are rare. We utilize the National Survey of Families and Households to examine trends in intentions to remain childless. We include both demographic and ideational variables in the analysis, and we focus on respondents between the ages of 19 and 39 years who had not had children at the beginning of the study. The largest group wants children but still postpone childbearing. The next largest group carries out their intention to have children. The third largest group switches from wanting children to not wanting children. Some are consistently childless in both surveys. Finally, a relatively small group did not intend to have a child in the first survey but subsequently had a child. Marital status is the most salient predictor for having children, but cohabitors also are more likely to have children than are single noncohabitors.
Paternal involvement with children has received increased attention, yet the factors that influence variation in involvement remain largely unidentified. This analysis of fathers from a nationally representative sample explores the relationship between timing of fatherhood and men's parenting behavior and paternal affect. Multivariate analyses reveal no effects of timing on these outcomes when considered separately. Yet, differences are found on a multidimensional typology of paternal behavior and affect. Compared to "On-time" fathers, "Late" fathers are more likely to be classified as highly involved with positive paternal affect. The results call into question the notion that On-time transitions are optimal. Explanations for the findings are framed in terms of competing roles and the accumulation of psychological resources.
Using the cultural and human ecology models as a guide, we assessed the associations between fathers' age, family income, length of time married, educational level, dimensions of fathers' functional style within the family, social support, and fathers' involvement in basic caregiving of their preschool-age child in intact middle to lower middle income African-American families. The data revealed that fathers spend about a third as much time as their wives in primary caregiving, and fathers' educational level, family income, communication, extrafamilial support, and length of time married were the chief variables associated with different dimensions of men's involvement with children. The data are discussed with respect to the primacy of specific factors in considering the father's role in African-American families.
Using time-diary data collected from a statewide probability sample of California children aged 3-11, we examine the amount of time children spend on four activities presumed to affect their cognitive and social development - reading or being read to, watching TV, studying, and doing household chores - and how that time varies by four family characteristics: parental education, maternal employment, number of parents in the household, and family size. As expected, children of highly educated parents study and read more and watch TV less. Contrary to expectations, children of mothers who are employed part-time watch significantly less TV than children of mothers at home full-time. Otherwise, there are few significant differences by mother's extent of paid employment, the presence of a father, and the number of siblings. Thus, the results reinforce the thesis that parental education is the predominant predictor of the human and social capital investments that children receive.
In the eighteenth century a Great Transformation began--a transformation rooted in even earlier times and still in progress today. This transformation is characterized by the decline of primordial institutions based on the family as the central element of social organization and the replacement of these institutions by purposively constructed organization. Sociology is itself a product of this transformation, and the stages in the Great Transformation are mirrored by changes in the central foci of sociological theory and research. The decline of primordial social organization has been accompanied by a loss of informal social capital on which social control depended before the transformation. The design of purposive organization is necessary to compensate for this loss; this design is an emerging central focus for sociology. I introduce an example, "bounties on children," to illustrate this point.
This paper explores how twenty dual-earner couples with school-aged children talk about sharing child care and housework. In about half of the families, fathers are described as performing many tasks traditionally performed by mothers, but remaining in a helper role. In the other families, fathers are described as assuming equal responsibility for domestic chores. With reference to the parents' accounts of the planning, allocation, and performance of household labor, I investigate the social conditions and interactional processes that facilitate equal sharing. I describe how the routine practice of sharing child care and an ongoing marital conversation socialize the parents and help them to construct an image of the father as a competent care giver. Drawing on West and Zimmerman's (1987) formulation of “doing gender,” I suggest that household labor provides the opportunity for expressing, confirming and sometimes transforming the meaning of gender.
Using ethnographic data of US white and African-American children 7-10 years of age, this study examines the role of social class in shaping the contours of childhood, pace and rhythm of life, and the amount of interweaving between parents' and children's lives. Focusing on middle-class and working-class boys, the results show that middle-class children spend time in activities organized by adults stressing public performance and skill development. Working-class children's lives tend to revolve around informal play, visiting kin and `hanging out'. Middle-class children's activities, while formally leisure, were similar to school activities. There are also parallels between middle-class children's activities and the nature of their parents' work.
The roles of women and of feminine identity have been historically and traditionally constructed around motherhood. However, recent years have seen a growing trend among women to remain childless/ childfree. Drawing on interviews with 25 voluntarily childless women, this article considers the extent to which this trend results from the appeal or pull of the perceived advantages of a childfree lifestyle as well as the ways childfree women might represent a more fundamental and radical rejection of motherhood and the activities associated with it. The article concludes by considering how to recast understandings of feminine identity away from a mother-centered focus.
Custodial fathers' engagement activities with their minor children are examined with data for heterosexual couples from the National Survey of Families and Households. Analyses focus on men who are currently living with a wife or nonlegal partner, and are conducted separately for fathers with children aged 0-4, 2-4, and 5-18. Fathers' and wives'/partners' level of education and fathers' work/scheduling hours were related to paternal involvement for selected models. However, analyses of these data, contrary to much of the previous research in this area, revealed that characteristics associated with wives'/partners' work scheduling status, number of hours worked, occupational prestige, percentage of couple income, and gender role attitudes were seldom, if ever, related to various models of fathers' engagement activities with their children. The strongest and most consistent predictors of paternal involvement with children 5-18 years of age were children's characteristics: age, number, biological status, and gender composition. Paternal involvement in leisure, playing and project activities, and private talks was positively related to having only male children living in the household, while fathers with only biological children were more likely to engage in playing and project activities and private talks with their children.
This article examines trends in family attitudes and values across the last 4 decades of the 20th century, with particular emphasis on the past 2 decades. The article focuses on attitudes toward a wide range of family issues, including the roles of men and women, marriage, divorce, childlessness, premarital sex, extramarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, and unmarried childbearing. More generally, the article considers trends in 3 broad contemporary values: freedom; equality; and commitment to family, marriage, and children. Five data sets are used for the article: Monitoring the Future, General Social Survey, International Social Science Project, Intergenerational Panel Study of Parents and Children, and the National Survey of Families and Households. These 5 data sets reveal substantial and persistent long-term trends toward the endorsement of gender equality in families, which may have plateaued at very high levels in recent years. There have also been important and continuing long-term trends toward individual autonomy and tolerance toward a diversity of personal and family behaviors as reflected in increased acceptance of divorce, premarital sex, unmarried cohabitation, remaining single, and choosing to be childless. At the same time, marriage and family life remain important in the cultural ethos, with large and relatively stable fractions of young people believing that marriage and family life are important and planning marriage and the bearing and rearing of children.
In this article, the author explores the care involved in parenting teenage children. Parenting at this stage, when teenagers are on the cusp of independence, requires strategies of monitoring and controlling children that are often not thought of as carework. The author focuses her analysis on one particular area of great concern to parents—control over teenagers' freedom of movement. Parents see control over their children's whereabouts as essential for keeping children safe. In presenting her data—interviews with mothers and teenagers—the author highlights the interactive aspect of this work. This kind of carework is above all a series of negotiations between parents and teenage children as teenagers try to gain more independence and parents try to maintain some control over them. Another important part of this analysis is to demonstrate that this type of parenting work is strongly affected by larger social forces of gender, class, and race.
Research on fear of crime in the United States has concentrated on personal fear while overlooking the fear that people have for others in their lives-children, spouses, friends-whose safety they value. Sample survey data reveal that altruistic fear (fear for others) has a distinctive structure in family households and is more common and often more intense than personal fear. Many of the everyday precautions practiced by Americans and conventionally assumed to be self-protective appear to be a consequence of altruistic fear. These and other findings underscore the need to understand fear of crime as a social rather than an individual phenomenon.
Research literature on fatherhood has featured a critical perspective on men's attitudes toward family life, their style of parenting, and the amount they participate in myriad aspects of daily parenting. This qualitative study explores the resourcefulness of men and women in families dedicated to organizing their family life to involve fathers. A tag-team pattern of sharing parenting emerged as a key to their success. While agreeing on the fundamentals of child care, these mothers and fathers valued differences in what each parent contributes to the tag team. Both men and women in the research couples highlighted the pragmatic benefit of approaching parenting as a tag team requiring the full and unique contribution of each partner (mother and father). Pragmatic aspects of a tag team allow each partner to maintain certain specializations while remaining essentially interchangeable in function if not in form.
This study uses newly collected time diary data to assess gender
differences in both quantity and quality of free time, including measures
of contamination of free time by nonleisure activities such as household
chores, the fragmentation of free time, and how frequently children's
needs must be accommodated during free-time activities. Our findings
suggest that men and women do experience free time very differently. Men
tend to have more of it. Marriage and children exacerbate the gender
gap and market work hours erode men's and women's free time in different
ways. Our findings reveal that despite gains toward gender equality in
other domains, discrepancies persist in the experience of free time.
Reviews the ways in which household work has been measured and compares results obtained using different approaches to data collection. Results show that direct questions on the amount of time spent doing housework tend to overestimate the time spent when compared with time diaries. It is concluded that methodologically oriented research designed to create reliable measures of involvement in household work for inclusion in surveys is needed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three hypotheses of husbands participation in domestic labor (i.e., housework and child care) are examined: (1) the relative resources hypothesis states that the more resources (e.g., socioeconomic characteristics) a husband has relative to his wife, the less domestic labor he does; (2) the sex role ideology hypothesis maintains that the more traditional the husband's sex role attitudes, the less domestic labor he performs; and (3) the demand/response capability hypothesis states that the more domestic task demands on a husband and the greater his capacity to respond to them, the greater his participation in domestic labor. OLS regression results from a nationally-representative sample of employed persons overwhelmingly supports the demand/response capability hypothesis. The analysis suggests that neither attitude change nor education will alter the division of domestic labor. Rather, findings indicate that younger men who have children, employed wives, and jobs that do not require long work hours are most likely to be involved in houschold activities.
The purpose of this article is to examine how American children under age 13 spend their time, sources of variation in time use, and associations with achievement and behavior. Data come from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results suggest that parents' characteristics and decisions regarding marriage, family size, and employment affect the time children spend in educational, structured, and family activities, which may affect their school achievement. Learning activities such as reading for pleasure are associated with higher achievement, as is structured time spent playing sports and in social activities. Family time spent at meals and time spent sleeping are linked to fewer behavior problems, as measured by the child's score on the Behavior Problems Index. The results support common language and myth about the optimal use of time for child development.
“Family time” is often uncritically accepted as a uniform, coherent concept and a universally desirable goal. In order to fully understand the meaning of family time in experience, interviews were conducted with parents in 17 dual-earner and 11 single-parent families, and 8 observation episodes were done with 4- and 5-year-old children in childcare. What emerged was a dramatic discordance between the expectations and experiences of family time. Although families have held on to an expectation of a positive experience of togetherness, they are typically left with a feeling that there is never enough, that it is in the service of children, and that they are duty-bound by it. There is a structural contradiction between the ideals and experience of family time that is typically expressed through disillusionment and guilt.
This paper uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine children's involvement with their fathers in intact families as measured through time spent together. Our findings suggest that although mothers still shoulder the lion's share of the parenting, fathers' involvement relative to that of mothers appears to be on the increase. A “new father” role is emerging on weekends in intact families. Different determinants of fathers' involvement were found on weekdays and on weekends. Fathers' wages and work hours have a negative relationship with the time they spend with a child on weekdays, but not on weekends. Mothers' work hours have no effect on children's time with fathers. On weekends, Black fathers were found to be less involved and Latino fathers more involved with their children than are White fathers. The weekday-weekend differential suggests that a simple gender inequality theory is not sufficient in explaining the dynamics of household division of labor in today's American families.
Historical and current data sets are used to trace the time married women and men spend caring for their own children on a daily basis. The data are also used to estimate the total time parents spend in raising two children to the age of 18. The analysis is restricted to primary child care time; i.e., the actual, direct administration of personal care, including physical care (feeding, bathing, dressing, putting to bed) and such other direct personal care as teaching, chauffering, supervising, counseling, managing, training, amusing, and entertaining. Secondary parental child care time is not studied. Although white married women spent about. 56 hours per day per child in primary child care in the 1924–1931 period, by 1981, the time had decreased to about 1.00 hour per day per child. Married men spent 0.25 hours per day per child in 1975, the first year for which national data exists. By 1981, this figure had increased to 0.33 hours per day per child. Raising two children to age 18 required about 5,789 hours of a white, employed, married woman's time and 14,053 hours of a white, unemployed, married woman's time in 1981. Husbands of white, employed married women spent about 1,500 more hours in raising two children to age 18 than the husbands of white, unemployed married women.
The current experiment was designed to examine perceptions of employed and unemployed mothers and fathers in the context of Eagly's [(1987) Sex Differences in Social Behavior: A Social-Role Interpretation, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum] social role theory of sex differences in social behavior. Participants, who were students from a private college with a primarily white student body, read a brief description of a mother or father who was employed or had given up employment in order to stay at home with a young child. Reasons for current or previous employment were either financial or for personal fulfillment. As predicted by Eagly's social role theory, participants rated employed mothers and fathers similarly and perceived them to be more agentic and less communal than unemployed mothers and fathers. Approval ratings deteriorated significantly when a father sacrificed financial security for care giving; the same behavior by mothers received high approval. These findings provided evidence of a continuing societal mandate for fathers (and not mothers) to provide financially for their families.
This paper puts recent feminist theorizing about “care” within an economic context by developing the concept of caring labor and exploring possible reasons for its undervaluation. It describes the relevance of tensions between neoclassical and institutionalist thought, as well as between pro-market and anti-market views. The final section explores the implications for feminist public policy.
As soon as men and women … acquire the habit of weighing the individual advantages and disadvantages of any prospective course
of action … they cannot fail to become aware of the heavy personal sacrifices that family ties and especially parenthood entail
under modern conditions. (Schumpeter 1988/1942, pp. 501–502)
