Felt deficits in time with children: Individual and contextual factors across 27 European countries

Abstract

A sizeable portion of parents say they lack time with children-an important social problem given that time strains link to parental well-being. Extending perspectives on the demands and rewards of parenting beyond the individual level, we provide a contextual-level window onto mothers' and fathers' time strains. Based on data from the European Quality of Life Survey 2016/17 (n = 5,898), we analyze whether parents feel they spend enough time caring for their children using multilevel models. We first observe that country context matters in that perceptions of time only moderately or weakly relate to hours with children across countries, especially for fathers, suggesting varying social expectations across Europe. Second, in multivariate analyses examining micro-and macro-level factors, we show that at the individual level, feeling too little time with children is more frequent among fathers and those who work more hours, even when controlling for estimated weekly hours spent caring for children. At the country level, parents' time strain is higher in countries where employees have less time and place flexibility, typically in Central and Eastern as well as Southern Europe. Gender norms matter as well. Extending contextual perspectives, we argue that how gender-work-family regimes color felt time strain is a promising future research direction.

Out of time, out of mind: Multifaceted time perceptions and mental wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…With this, child's age is likely to matter fundamentally to time scarcity and mental wellbeing (e.g. Berghammer and Milkie, 2021;Milkie et al, 2019;Negraia and Augustine, 2020). Unfortunately, the Gallup data leave us unable to differentiate young children from adolescents.…”

“…Even outside a pandemic, working parents report “felt deficits” in time spent with family (Berghammer and Milkie, 2021; Milkie et al, 2019). Parents often report feeling rushed and that time is moving quickly rather than slowly, relative to nonparents (Musick et al, 2016).…”

What makes a good mother? Two decades of research reflecting social norms of motherhood

“…In the European context, and especially since the turn of the new millennium, parenthood in general has increasingly been normatively constructed as a responsible act (Beaujouan & Berghammer, 2019). Parents, and particularly mothers, are expected to invest time and energy in their children (Berghammer & Milkie, 2021), to sacrifice themselves by placing their offspring's well-being ahead of their own to establish strong "attachments" to their children (Faircloth, 2014;Hamilton, 2016;Hulen, 2022), and to satisfy their needs, wishes, and desires (Ennis, 2014;Hays, 1996). At the same time, early childhood education and care has been greatly expanded across countries (Koslowski et al, 2021;OECD, 2017).…”