IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lev/wrkpap/wp_439.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Where Do They Find the Time?: An Analysis of How Parents Shift and Squeeze Their Time around Work and Child Care

Author

Listed:
  • Lyn Craig

Abstract

Parents who undertake paid work are obliged to spend time away from their children, and to use nonparental childcare. This has given rise to concern that children are missing out on parental attention. However, time-use studies have consistently shown that parents who are in paid employment do not reduce their parental childcare time on an hour-for-hour basis. Since there are only 24 hours in the day, how do parents continue to be engaged in direct care of their own children while also committing significant time to labor market activities? Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 1997 (4,059 randomly selected households) to compare the time allocation of employed fathers, employed mothers, and mothers who are not in the labor force, this paper investigates how this phenomenon arises. The strategies available are reducing the time devoted to other activities (principally housework, sleep, leisure, bathing, dressing, grooming, eating), and rescheduling activities (from weekends to weekdays, or changing the time of day at which particular activities are undertaken). The paper investigates whether parents use nonparental care to reschedule as well as to replace their own care.

Suggested Citation

  • Lyn Craig, 2006. "Where Do They Find the Time?: An Analysis of How Parents Shift and Squeeze Their Time around Work and Child Care," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_439, Levy Economics Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_439
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp_439.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jonathan Gershuny & John Robinson, 1988. "Historical changes in the household division of labor," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(4), pages 537-552, November.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1.
    3. Michael Bittman & Judy Wajcman, 1999. "The Rush Hour: The Quality of Leisure Time and Gender Equity," Discussion Papers 0097, University of New South Wales, Social Policy Research Centre.
    4. 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.
    5. Bruce Chapman & Yvonne Dunlop & Matthew Gray & Amy Liu & Deborah Mitchell, 1999. "The Foregone Earnings From Child Rearing Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 407, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    6. Martin Browning & Valérie Lechene, 2003. "Children and Demand: Direct and Non-Direct Effects," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 9-31, January.
    7. Michael Bittman, 1999. "Parenthood Without Penalty: Time Use And Public Policy In Australia And Finland," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 27-42.
    8. Apps, Patricia & Rees, Ray, 2001. "Household production, full consumption and the costs of children," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(6), pages 621-648, December.
    9. Carlin, Paul S. & Flood, Lennart, 1997. "Do children affect the labor supply of Swedish men? Time diary vs. survey data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 167-183, June.
    10. Suzanne Bianchi, 2000. "Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(4), pages 401-414, November.
    11. Dominique Anxo & Paul Carlin, 2004. "Intra-family time allocation to housework - French evidence," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 1(1), pages 14-36, August.
    12. David M. Blau, 1997. "The Production of Quality in Child Care Centers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(2), pages 354-387.
    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. Jay Stewart, 2010. "The Timing of Maternal Work and Time with Children," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 64(1), pages 181-200, October.
    2. Jay Stewart & Mary Dorinda Allard, 2008. "How Does Employment Affect the Timing of Time with Children?," Working Papers 419, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

    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. Lyn Craig, 2007. "How Employed Mothers in Australia Find Time for Both Market Work and Childcare," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 28(1), pages 69-87, March.
    2. Charlene Kalenkoski & David Ribar & Leslie Stratton, 2007. "The effect of family structure on parents’ child care time in the United States and the United Kingdom," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 353-384, December.
    3. Jara-Díaz, Sergio & Rosales-Salas, Jorge, 2017. "Beyond transport time: A review of time use modeling," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 209-230.
    4. Cara B. Fedick & Shelley Pacholok & Anne H. Gauthier, 2005. "Methodological issues in the estimation of parental time – Analysis of measures in a Canadian time-use survey," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 2(1), pages 67-87, October.
    5. Christopher J. Ruhm, 2004. "Parental Employment and Child Cognitive Development," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(1).
    6. Robert M. Solow & Jean-Philippe Touffut (ed.), 2010. "The Shape of the Division of Labour," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14184.
    7. Ruhm, Christopher J., 2008. "Maternal employment and adolescent development," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 958-983, October.
    8. Jens Bonke & James McIntosh, 2005. "Household time allocation – Theoretical and empirical results from Denmark," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 2(1), pages 1-12, October.
    9. Charlene M. Kalenkoski & David C. Ribar & Leslie S. Stratton, 2006. "Parental Child Care in Single Parent, Cohabiting, and Married Couple Families: Time Diary Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_440, Levy Economics Institute.
    10. Jutta M. Joesch & C. Katharina Spiess, 2002. "European Mothers' Time with Children: Differences and Similarities across Nine Countries," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 305, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Ragni Hege Kitterød & Torkild Hovde Lyngstad, 2005. "Diary versus questionnaire information on time spent on housework – The case of Norway," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 2(1), pages 13-32, October.
    12. Casey B. Mulligan & Barbara Schneider & Rustin Wolfe, 2005. "Non-response and population representation in studies of adolescent time use," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 2(1), pages 33-53, October.
    13. Maria Stanfors & Frances Goldscheider, 2017. "The forest and the trees: Industrialization, demographic change, and the ongoing gender revolution in Sweden and the United States, 1870-2010," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 36(6), pages 173-226.
    14. Kimberly Fisher & Michael Bittman & Patricia Hill & Cathy Thomson, 2005. "The time cost of care," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 2(1), pages 54-66, October.
    15. Shelly Lundberg, 2010. "The Changing Sexual Division of Labour," Chapters, in: Robert M. Solow & Jean-Philippe Touffut (ed.), The Shape of the Division of Labour, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Berenice Monna & Anne Gauthier, 2008. "A Review of the Literature on the Social and Economic Determinants of Parental Time," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 634-653, December.
    17. Anne H. Gauthier & Timothy M. Smeeding & Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., 2004. "Do We Invest Less Time in Children? Trends in Parental Time in Selected Industrialized Countries Since the 1960's," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 64, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    18. James J. Heckman, 2015. "Introduction to A Theory of the Allocation of Time by Gary Becker," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(583), pages 403-409, March.
    19. Cheal, David & Kampen, Karen, 1997. "Complementarity in the labor supply of husbands and wives," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 495-512.
    20. Catherine Sofer & Claire Thibout, 2019. "Women’s investment in career and the household division of labour," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(60), pages 6535-6557, December.

    More about this item

    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:lev:wrkpap:wp_439. 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: Elizabeth Dunn (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.levyinstitute.org .

    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.