Fathers’ and mothers’ enjoyment of childcare: the role of multitasking (original) (raw)
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This study used data from the 'Well Being Module' of the 2010 American Time Use Survey (N = 1,699) to analyze how parents experience child care time in terms of meaning and stress levels. Multivariate multilevel regressions showed clear differences by gender and the circumstances of child care activities. Mothers experienced child care time as more stressful than fathers, and fathers as slightly more meaningful. Interactive child care was experienced as more meaningful and less stressful than routine child care, whereas these differences were stronger among fathers than among mothers. Mothers experienced child care with a minor child as highly meaningful, and with an adolescent as particularly stressful. Fathers experienced child care with an infant as highly stressful, and with an offspring in middle childhood as disproportionally meaningful. The spouse's presence was moderately associated with higher senses of meaning and lower levels of stress during child care, but these differences were modest, and only visible among fathers. Paid work hours increased mothers' stress levels during child care activities, but reduced fathers' stress levels. Meanwhile, non-employed fathers reported child care time as less meaningful than non-employed mothers. Overall, this study has important scientific and practical implications for understanding the gendered nature of parents' child care time and wellbeing.
Parents’ Well Being and Child Care Time: The Case of Italy
Proceedings of The International Conference on Social Sciences in the 21st Century, 2019
Time spent with children as well as the variety of activities performed has increased over the last decades. The spread of “intensive-parenting” social norms in recent years has been associated with positive effects of the wellbeing and healthy development of children. However, the effects of childcare giving on the wellbeing of parents are less clear. While a substantial body of literature has shown lower levels of subjective well-being among parents compared to childless people, only a limited number of studies based on the US have analysed the relation between childcare time and parents’ wellbeing. In this study, we use micro data from the latest edition of the Italian Time Use Survey (2013-2014) to explore the relation between the use of time of parents for children and their subjective wellbeing, after having controlled for a number of individual and household characteristics. We take advantage of the detailed survey’s information to distinguish between the different activities...
Child Care Time, Parents’ Well-Being, and Gender: Evidence from the American Time Use Survey
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2016
This study used data from the 'Well Being Module' of the 2010 American Time Use Survey (N = 1699) to analyze how parents experience child care time in terms of meaning and stress levels. Multivariate multilevel regressions showed clear differences by gender and the circumstances of child care activities. Mothers experienced child care time as more stressful than fathers, and fathers as slightly more meaningful. Interactive child care was experienced as more meaningful and less stressful than routine child care, whereas these differences were stronger among fathers than among mothers. Mothers experienced child care with a minor child as highly meaningful, and with an adolescent as particularly stressful. Fathers experienced child care with an infant as highly stressful, and with an offspring in middle childhood as disproportionally meaningful. The spouse's presence was moderately associated with higher senses of meaning and lower levels of stress during child care, but these differences were modest, and only visible among fathers. Paid work hours increased mothers' stress levels during child care activities, but reduced fathers' stress levels. Meanwhile, nonemployed fathers reported child care time as less meaningful than non-employed mothers. Overall, this study has important scientific and practical implications for 'understanding the gendered nature of parents' child care time and well-being.
2013
This paper considers the question posed by popular media, do women like doing child care more than men? Using experienced emotions data paired with 24 hour time diaries from the 2010 American Time Use Survey, the paper explores gender differences in how men and women who have done some child caregiving on the previous day feel when engaged in a set of common daily activities. We find that both men and women enjoy their time in child caregiving, men as much, or even more so, than women as evidenced by their average values for happiness, tiredness, and stress, their predicted values for the same three emotions and via an aggregated statistic, the unpleasantness index. Counter-factual unpleasantness indices provide evidence that difference between men and women come almost completely from differences in their experience emotions rather than from differences in how they use their time.
2009
Aim of the paper is to show the degree of father's participation in mundane child-tending tasks and to evaluate the individual or couple's characteristics favouring this involvement, with special concern for labour market participation. Our analysis is based on a sample of fathers of pre-schoolaged children from the 2003 Multipurpose Italian survey on Family and Social Actors, carried out by ISTAT. Results have confirmed that the daily childcare burden rests mainly on mothers' shoulders, although fathers have increased their involvement in the last few years. Only a small minority of fathers performs all the routine activities of childcare on a daily basis. However, father's commitment increases substantially if the mother is employed and if she works more hours. Men's working conditions influence the degree of their involvement in childrearing as well, other things being equal: similarly to what happens for women, role reconciliation can be facilitated when fathers are either white-collar workers or teachers, or work a reduced number of hours. The combination of characteristics between partners, have a clear impact in shaping gender roles with special regard to childcare.
2011
Recently, the idea that children can be detrimental to the well-being of their parents has gained popularity both amongst researchers and lay individuals. The previous research on parental well-being, however, has not provided any conclusive evidence in favour of this popular perception, and there is some research suggesting that parents might actually experience some benefits to their well-being as a result of having children. In addition, very little is known about the demographic and psychological factors that predict parental well-being. By overcoming various limitations of previous research designs, in the present research we examined whether taking care of children was associated with better cognitive and affective well-being outcomes. We further explored whether SES and child-centrism (i.e., the tendency of parents to put the well-being of their children before their own) were predictors of parental well-being. In a sample of 186 parents, we found that parents reported both more meaning and more positive affect when they were taking care of their children as compared to the rest of their day. We also showed that SES was negatively associated with the meaning parents experienced during childcare, a relationship that was mediated by the perceived opportunity cost of childcare. Finally, we demonstrated that when they were taking care of their children, more child-centric parents reported both more meaning and more positive affect than less child-centric parents. The implications of those findings for enhancing the well-being of parents as well as for improving future research on parental well-being are discussed.
Occupational characteristics and parents' childcare time
Journal of Marriage and Family, 2021
Objective This study examines how occupational resources and demands are associated with parents' childcare time. Background Scholars recognize parental employment as important for understanding parental time use. Yet, given data limitations, we know relatively little about how strain-based demands (demands that can produce negative psychological states) are associated with parent's time with children. Method Occupational-level data in the O*NET Database are linked to the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) 2011–2019 (n = 10,274 workday diaries from employed parents in 427 occupations). Ordinary Least Squares regression (OLS) is used to examine how occupational resources and demands are associated with parents' time with children and in childcare on workdays. Results Mothers in occupations with greater strain-based demands—competitive pressure, aggression-conflict, monotony, and physicality-hazards—spend less time with their children and less time on physical childcare activities. For fathers, associations are weaker with monotonous jobs also associated with less time with children. Workplace conditions, however, are weakly or even positively associated with parents' time on nonworkdays, suggesting that the daily experience of work affects parents' time use at home. Autonomy, an occupational resource, is positively associated with fathers' time with children and with mothers' time in interactive care. Conclusion Resources and strain-based demands—measured at the occupational-level—are associated with parents' time use. The O*NET Database can be linked to the ATUS to better understand families' time use.
Beyond Childcare: Changes in the Amount and Types of Parent-Child Time over Three Decades
2021
Parents’ time with children has increased over the past several decades, according to many scholars. Yet, research predominantly focuses on childcare activities, overlooking the majority of time parents spend with children. Using time diaries from the 1986-2015 Canadian General Social Survey, we examine trends in the quantity and distribution of parents’ childcare time and total contact time in the company of children, as well as the behavioral or compositional drivers of these trends. Contact time with children increased sharply since the mid-1980s, by 1 hour per day for fathers and 1.5 hours for mothers. This rise was driven not only by childcare activities but also parents’ time in housework and mothers’ time in leisure with children present. Decomposition analyses indicate that changes in parenting behavior primarily explain these increases in contact time. This study expands knowledge on intensive parenting through a more comprehensive understanding of parents’ daily lives with...
This study uses data from the ‘Spanish Time Use Survey’ (2009-2010) on two-parent families with children aged 10-16 (N = 593) to analyse the links between parental work schedules and children’s activities with developmental implications. Spain is a particularly interesting case as working during evening hours is highly institutionalised for parents. Results reveal that mothers’ evening work hours are associated with a reduction in children’s time spent on family activities and on educational activities, and with an increase in time spent watching television and doing electronic activities without their parents. However, the associations between maternal evening work hours and children’s activities generally apply only to children with less-educated mothers, not to children with highly-educated mothers. Fathers’ work schedules have generally insignificant associations with children’s time use. Overall, the study suggests that parental work schedules, parents’ gender, and social background intersect in influencing children’s activities with key implications for their present and future wellbeing.