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Beyond childcare: Changes in the amount and types of parent‐child time over three decades
Author(s) -
Wray Dana,
Ingenfeld Julia,
Milkie Melissa A.,
Boeckmann Irene
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
canadian review of sociology/revue canadienne de sociologie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.414
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1755-618X
pISSN - 1755-6171
DOI - 10.1111/cars.12356
Subject(s) - time use survey , developmental psychology , leisure time , psychology , demography , sociology , medicine , physical activity , work (physics) , mechanical engineering , engineering , physical medicine and rehabilitation
Parents’ time with children has increased over the past several decades, according to many scholars. Yet, research predominantly focuses on childcare activities, overlooking the majority of time that parents spend with children. Using time diaries from the 1986–2015 Canadian General Social Survey, we examine trends in the quantity and distribution of parents’ childcare time and total co‐present time in the company of children, as well as the behavioral or compositional drivers of these trends. Co‐present time with children increased sharply since the mid‐1980s, by 1 hour per day for fathers and 1.5 hours for mothers. This rise was driven not only by childcare activities, but also parents’ time in housework and mothers’ time in leisure with children present. Decomposition analyses indicate that changes in parenting behavior primarily explain these increases in co‐present time. This study expands knowledge on intensive parenting through a more comprehensive understanding of parents’ daily lives with children.