Time With Children: The Impact of Couples' Work-Time Commitments

Nock, S L; Kingston, Paul

doi:10.1093/sf/67.1.59

Cited by 198 publications

(150 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

135

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Using 1975– 76 time use data, Pleck (1985) and Nock and Kingston (1988) found no difference in child care time between fathers with an employed or non-employed wife. Fathers’ proportional share of child care was higher when mothers were employed, but primarily because a wife’s level of child care was lower and not because a husband’s was higher in households with an employed wife (Pleck 1985).…”

Section: Empirical Evidence On Maternal Employment and Father Involvementioning

confidence: 99%

When Do Fathers Care? Mothers’ Economic Contribution and Fathers’ Involvement in Child Care

Raley

Bianchi

Wang

2012

American Journal of Sociology

381

365

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous literature suggests a tenuous link between fathers’ care of children and maternal employment and earnings. This study shows that the link is stronger when measures of caregiving capture fathers’ increased responsibility for children. The analysis of time diary data from 6,572 married fathers and 7,376 married mothers with children under age 13 indicates that fathers (1) engage in more “solo” care of children when their wives are employed, (2) are more likely to do the kind of child care associated with responsibility for their children when their wives spend more time in the labor market, and (3) participate more in routine care when their wives contribute a greater share of the couple’s earnings. In addition, the “father care” to “mother care” ratio rises when mothers contribute a greater share of household earnings.

show abstract

Section: Empirical Evidence On Maternal Employment and Father Involvementioning

confidence: 99%

When Do Fathers Care? Mothers’ Economic Contribution and Fathers’ Involvement in Child Care

Raley

Bianchi

Wang

2012

American Journal of Sociology

381

365

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Parents’ ability to monitor and foster healthy relationships with their children is affected by a number of factors, including how their work schedules fit with family responsibilities. Both ecological theory (Bronfenbrenner 2005) and literature on work-family balance (Nock and Kingston 1988) indicate that time spent with parents is important for close and positive child-parent relationships. While developmental psychologists have emphasised the importance of parent-child contact for helping children foster close relationship with their environments (Belsky 2001), sociological theory (e.g., Coleman 1988) points to the transmission of cultural and social capital (e.g., values) important to children’s later well-being.…”

Section: The Link Between Parental Wok Schedules and Adolescent Deprementioning

confidence: 99%

Parental work schedules and adolescent depression

Han

Miller

2009

Health Sociology Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Using a large contemporary United States data set, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement (NLSY-CS), this paper examines the relationship between parental work schedules and adolescent depression at age 13 or 14, paying particular attention to the mechanisms that may explain this relationship. Analysis based on structural equation modeling showed that increased work at night by mothers was significantly associated with a lower quality of home environment and fewer meals together, and this mediator was significantly linked to increased risks for adolescent depression. In addition, evening work by fathers was significantly associated with lower paternal closeness and this mediator was significantly associated with increases in adolescent depression. In contrast, irregular shifts by both mothers and fathers increased the likelihood of mothers knowing where the child was and this relationship in turn reduced adolescent depression. Implications and avenues for future research were discussed.

show abstract

“…In other words, they may trade quantity for quality of childcare time. For example, Nock and Kingston (1988) found that much of the time that stay-at-home mothers spend with children occurs while mothers are cooking, cleaning, or housekeeping. Differences in time dedicated to activities such as playing, reading, and doing homework by maternal employment status among women with young children amount to less than an hour per day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When Does Time Matter? Maternal Employment, Children’s Time With Parents, and Child Development

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study tests the two assumptions underlying popularly held notions that maternal employment negatively affects children because it reduces time spent with parents: (1) that maternal employment reduces children's time with parents, and (2) that time with parents affects child outcomes. We analyze children's time-diary data from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and use child fixed-effects and IV estimations to account for unobserved heterogeneity. We find that working mothers trade quantity of time for better “quality” of time. On average, maternal work has no effect on time in activities that positively influence children's development, but it reduces time in types of activities that may be detrimental to children's development. Stratification by mothers’ education reveals that although all children, regardless of mother's education, benefit from spending educational and structured time with their mothers, mothers who are high school graduates have the greatest difficulty balancing work and childcare. We find some evidence that fathers compensate for maternal employment by increasing types of activities that can foster child development as well as types of activities that may be detrimental. Overall, we find that the effects of maternal employment are ambiguous because (1) employment does not necessarily reduce children's time with parents, and (2) not all types of parental time benefit child development.

show abstract

Time With Children: The Impact of Couples' Work-Time Commitments

Cited by 198 publications

References 14 publications

When Do Fathers Care? Mothers’ Economic Contribution and Fathers’ Involvement in Child Care

When Do Fathers Care? Mothers’ Economic Contribution and Fathers’ Involvement in Child Care

Parental work schedules and adolescent depression

When Does Time Matter? Maternal Employment, Children’s Time With Parents, and Child Development

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About