IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/dem/demres/v37y2017i49.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Siblings and children's time use in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Rachel Dunifon

    (Cornell University)

  • Kelly Musick

    (Cornell University)

  • Paula Fomby

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

Background: Eighty-two percent of children under age 18 live with at least one sibling, and the sibling relationship is typically the longest-lasting family relationship in an individual's life. Nevertheless, siblings remain understudied in the family demography literature. Objective: We ask how having a sibling structures children's time spent with others and in specific activities, and how children’s time and activities with siblings vary by social class, gender, and age. Methods: We use time diary data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics' Child Development Supplement (PSID-CDS), comparing the time use of children with and without siblings and presenting regression-adjusted descriptive statistics on patterns among those with siblings. Results: Children with siblings spend about half of their discretionary time engaged with siblings. They spend less time alone with parents and more time in unstructured play than those without siblings. Brothers and more closely spaced siblings spend more time together and more time in unstructured play. For example, boys with at least one brother spend five more hours per week with their siblings and over three more hours per week in unstructured play than boys with no brothers. Conclusions: The presence and characteristics of siblings shape children's time use in ways that may have implications for child development. Contribution: This is the first study to use children's time diary data to examine how the presence and characteristics of siblings structure ways in which children spend their time. This contributes to our broader understanding of sibling relationships and family dynamics.

Suggested Citation

  • Rachel Dunifon & Kelly Musick & Paula Fomby, 2017. "Siblings and children's time use in the United States," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 37(49), pages 1611-1624.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:37:y:2017:i:49
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2017.37.49
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.demographic-research.org/volumes/vol37/49/37-49.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.4054/DemRes.2017.37.49?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kieron J. Barclay & Martin Kolk, 2017. "The Long-Term Cognitive and Socioeconomic Consequences of Birth Intervals: A Within-Family Sibling Comparison Using Swedish Register Data," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 459-484, April.
    2. Lisa Keister, 2003. "Sharing the wealth: The effect of siblings on adults’ wealth ownership," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(3), pages 521-542, August.
    3. Hanushek, Eric A, 1992. "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 84-117, February.
    4. Ronni Pavan, 2016. "On the Production of Skills and the Birth-Order Effect," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(3), pages 699-726.
    5. Joseph Price, 2008. "Parent-Child Quality Time: Does Birth Order Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(1).
    6. Tom Emery, 2013. "Intergenerational transfers and European families: Does the number of siblings matter?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(10), pages 247-274.
    7. Juster, F Thomas & Stafford, Frank P, 1991. "The Allocation of Time: Empirical Findings, Behavioral Models, and Problems of Measurement," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 471-522, June.
    8. Kasey S. Buckles & Elizabeth L. Munnich, 2012. "Birth Spacing and Sibling Outcomes," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(3), pages 613-642.
    9. Giulia Ferrari & Gianpiero Dalla Zuanna, 2010. "Siblings and human capital: A comparison between Italy and France," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 23(21), pages 587-614.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Schnorr, Geoffrey & Lee, Eunju, 2021. "Am I My Brother's Barkeeper? Sibling Spillovers in Alcohol Consumption at the Minimum Legal Drinking Age," SocArXiv qntxh, Center for Open Science.
    2. Amanda N. Spitzer & Katrina Oselinsky & Rachel G. Lucas-Thompson & Dan J. Graham, 2022. "Environmental Physical Activity Cues and Children’s Active vs. Sedentary Recreation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(3), pages 1-12, February.
    3. Patrick Präg & Christiaan Monden & Seongsoo Choi, 2020. "The sibsize revolution in an international context: Declining social disparities in the number of siblings in 26 countries," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(17), pages 461-500.
    4. Katz, Carmit & Tener, Dafna & Hindi, Inbal, 2021. "“We took turns”: How do child victims of intrafamilial child sexual abuse perceive and experience their siblings?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Limor Gabay-Egozi & Lloyd Grieger & Natalie Nitsche, 2020. "In my brother’s footstep or shadow? Siblings’ compositional characteristics and gender differences in STEM major," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-031, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    2. Rita Ginja & Jenny Jans & Arizo Karimi, 2020. "Parental Leave Benefits, Household Labor Supply, and Children’s Long-Run Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(1), pages 261-320.
    3. Eiji Yamamura, 2015. "Effects of Siblings and Birth Order on Income Redistribution Preferences: Evidence Based on Japanese General Social Survey," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 589-606, April.
    4. Philipp M. Lersch, 2019. "Fewer Siblings, More Wealth? Sibship Size and Wealth Attainment," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 35(5), pages 959-986, December.
    5. Young-Joo Kim, 2020. "Born to be more educated? Birth order and schooling," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 165-180, March.
    6. Dasgupta, Kabir & Solomon, Keisha T., 2018. "Family size effects on childhood obesity: Evidence on the quantity-quality trade-off using the NLSY," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 42-55.
    7. Ea Hoppe Blaabæk & Mads Meier Jæger & Joseph Molitoris, 2020. "Family Size and Educational Attainment: Cousins, Contexts, and Compensation," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(3), pages 575-600, July.
    8. Sandner, Malte, 2019. "Effects of early childhood intervention on fertility and maternal employment: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 159-181.
    9. Bonesrønning, Hans & Massih, Sofia Sandgren, 2011. "Birth order effects on young students’ academic achievement," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 824-832.
    10. de Haan, Monique, 2010. "Birth order, family size and educational attainment," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 576-588, August.
    11. Lucio Esposito & Sunil Mitra Kumar & Adrián Villaseñor, 2020. "The importance of being earliest: birth order and educational outcomes along the socioeconomic ladder in Mexico," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 1069-1099, July.
    12. David W Lawson & Arijeta Makoli & Anna Goodman, 2013. "Sibling Configuration Predicts Individual and Descendant Socioeconomic Success in a Modern Post-Industrial Society," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-9, September.
    13. Lawson, David W. & Mace, Ruth, 2010. "Siblings and childhood mental health: Evidence for a later-born advantage," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2061-2069, June.
    14. Wanchuan Lin & Juan Pantano & Shuqiao Sun, 2020. "Birth order and unwanted fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 413-440, April.
    15. Bu, Feifei, 2014. "Sibling configurations, educational aspiration and attainment," ISER Working Paper Series 2014-11, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    16. Rita Ginja & Jenny Jans & Arizo Karimi, 2017. "Parental Investments in Early Life and Child Outcomes: Evidence from Swedish Parental Leave Rules," Working Papers 2017-085, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    17. Spears, Dean & Coffey, Diane & Behrman, Jere R., 2019. "Birth Order, Fertility, and Child Height in India and Africa," IZA Discussion Papers 12289, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Le, Kien & Nguyen, My, 2020. "Shedding light on maternal education and child health in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    19. Kieron J. Barclay & Martin Kolk, 2018. "Birth Intervals and Health in Adulthood: A Comparison of Siblings Using Swedish Register Data," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(3), pages 929-955, June.
    20. Pruckner, Gerald J. & Schneeweis, Nicole & Schober, Thomas & Zweimüller, Martina, 2021. "Birth order, parental health investment, and health in childhood," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    United States of America; siblings; time use; family demography;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:37:y:2017:i:49. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Editorial Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.demogr.mpg.de/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.