Mother's Time on Meal Preparation, Expenditures for Meals Away from Home, and Shared Meals: Effects of Mother's Employment And Age of Younger Child

Abstract

Family role theory is the framework used to guide this study of how mother's employment and age of younger child affects mother's time in meal preparation and cleanup, expenditures for meals away from home, and meals shared by the family both at home and away. Eleven null hypotheses are generated and tested using data from the 11 state urban/rural comparison of families' time use. Analysis of covariance (with total family income controlled) is the primary statistical tech nique employed. Results indicated that the time spent by mothers in meal prep aration/dishwashing varied by their employment, and age of the younger child. Expenditures for meals purchased away from home did not differ by the mother's employment status or age of the younger child. Meals eaten together as a family were not related to the mother's employment status in urban areas, but were related in rural areas. Where meals were eaten together varied by employment status of the mother and age of the younger child. Implications for home econ omists and suggestions for future research are presented.

Time Value and Its Impact on Household Food Expenditures Away From Home

“…On the basis of previous research (e.g., Fletcher, 1981;Senauer, Sahn, & Alderman, 1986), conditioned on data availability (i.e., it was not possible to estimate the time value of individuals who were not household heads), (Tobin, 1958) Similar results were obtained by Goebel and Hennon (1983) in their analysis, which included only two-parent, two-child households. Fletcher (1981) found that income, the value of the household's time, and the composition of the household influence the household's life cycle expenditures for FAFH, all consistent with the results of the present study.…”

The Political Economy of Bulimia Nervosa

“…While the evidence is not unambiguous, and there is a need for a more comprehensive empirical database, research within the US suggests that the breakdown in family meal structures appears to be most advanced in situations where both the male and female work (Goebel and Hennon 1983;Siega-Riz 1998). However, these linkages are complex in that higher levels of female employment in many states in continental Europe have not had the same severity of impact on meal structures.…”

FamilyLog: A mobile system for monitoring family mealtime activities

“…Analyzing the conversation during a family meal is also important for culture studies [4]. Moreover, it is shown that, by reviewing detailed activity logs, people are motivated to modify their behaviors toward a healthy lifestyle [11][6][13][12]. …”

“…In addition to the implications for family health, fine-grained analysis of family mealtime enables important studies in sociology and home economy. For instance, research has showed that the amount of shared time (including conversation and eating) between spouses and between parents and children have strong links with family income, mother’s employment status, ages of children, and geographic location (urban or rural) [6][13][12]. However, according to a national survey in 2014, American families with children on an average work day spend almost 3 hours watching TV accounting for more than half of the leisure and sport time, while only 1 hour for family meal [24].…”