Towards intensive parenting? Changes in the composition and determinants of mothers' and fathers' time with children 1992–2006

Abstract

Contemporary expectations of good parenting hold that focused, intensive parental attention is essential to children's development. Parental input is viewed as a key determinant in children's social, psychological and educational outcomes, with the early years particularly crucial. However, increased rates of maternal employment mean that more parents are juggling work and family commitments and have less non-work time available to devote to children. Yet studies find that parental childcare time has increased over recent decades. In this paper, we explore the detail of this trend using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey (TUS), 1992 and 2006. To investigate whether discourses on intensive parenting are reflected in behaviour, we examine a greater range of parent-child activities than has been undertaken to date, looking at trends in active childcare time (disaggregated into talk-based, physical and accompanying care activities); time in childcare as a secondary activity; time spent in the company of children in leisure activities; and time spent in the company of children in total. We also investigate whether the influence of factors known to predict parental time with children (gender, education, employment status and the age of children) have changed over time. We contextualize our analyses within social and economic trends in Australia and find a compositional change in parental time, with more active childcare occurring within less overall time, which suggests more intensive, child-centred parenting. Fathers' parent-child time, particularly in physical care, increased more than mothers' (from a much lower base), and tertiary education no longer predicts significantly higher childcare time.

¿Una paternidad no tan nueva? Los discursos de jóvenes y padres sobre la implicación paterna: una comparación

“…Su diferenciación se establece, como se ha apuntado, por sus contenidos y formas significantes. Se trata de espacios coherentes con los ámbitos de implicación paterna actual tal como lo establece la literatura (Dermott, 2008;Barbeta-Viñas y Cano, 2017;Craig, et al, 2014). 1) el espacio del hogar y de las tareas instrumentales, que comprende un conjunto de significaciones vinculadas con la producción de la vida y la crianza de los hijos; 2) el espacio relacional, donde se condensan los aspectos expresivos y comunicativos del papel del padre.…”

“…En cuanto al ejercicio de la paternidad, algunos trabajos señalan cómo los padres con niveles formativos superiores serían más propicios a orientar su tiempo e intereses a la crianza de los hijos en relación a los padres con niveles inferiores de formación (Craig et al, 2014;Bianchi et al, 2006). Otros apuntan que la implicación paterna y los estilos de paternidad se muestran diversos entre grupos sociales con niveles socioeconómicos y educativos distintos (Marsiglio y Roy, 2012).…”

Scientific Parenting? What Parents Worry about and What Sources of Information They Use

“…According to this ideology, "methods of appropriate child-rearing are construed as child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive and financially expensive" [Hays, 1998]. The term "intensive parenting" is intensively used in the literature: the influential ideology also begins to spread across fathers [Shirani, Henwood, Coltart 2012;Craig, Powell, Smyth 2014].…”

Parents’ primary and secondary child care time adjustment to market time: Evidence from Australian mothers and fathers

“…In this article, 'market time' stands for time spent in market work, as in Hallberg and Klevmarken (2003). Among these studies, a few have focused on the implications for primary and secondary child care (Nock and Kingston 1988;Gutiérrez-Domènech 2010;Craig et al 2014;Bryant and Zick 1996). The available evidence is mixed.…”

“…In Spain, Gutiérrez-Domènech (2010) found that working mothers and fathers reduce primary child care time more than secondary child care when they increase their own work time. In Australia, Craig et al (2014) found that full-time employed parents spend less time for both primary and secondary child care than non-employed parents. However, they found no evidence of significant differences in child care time between part-time and full-time employed parents.…”