Toward a Better Understanding of the Associations Among Different Measures of Father Involvement and Parenting Alliance

The variety of measurement methods used in fathering research to assess fathers’ involvement makes it difficult to summarize what we know about paternal involvement and its correlates and antecedents. Aiming to shed light on the potential consequences of using different measures of paternal involvement, this study examined: (a) the associations among three measures of father participation in parental activities, namely self- and mother-reported questionnaires and a father-completed time diary, and (b) their respective associations with a well-documented predictor of father involvement, i.e., parenting alliance. The sample included 80 parental couples with a 6-month-old child. Although moderate associations were found among measures of father involvement, only the maternal and paternal questionnaires were associated with parenting alliance. These results suggest that time diaries and questionnaires tap into different aspects of father involvement that can have distinct correlates and determinants. Better acknowledgment of the diverging results attributable to the use of different measurement approaches of father involvement is needed.

Gendered Housework Among Adolescents in India

Although an in-depth body of literature has explored the gendered lives of children in India, little is known about adolescents. Utilizing 24-hour time diary data from South India, this study examined how girls’ ( n = 554) and boys’ ( n = 577) engagement in housework varied by parents’ gender ideology. Findings show that adolescent girls with egalitarian parents do significantly less housework than girls with less egalitarian parents. At first glance, these findings support socialization theory—that what parents think translates into what adolescents do. However, boys do very little housework, regardless of parents’ gender attitudes. These differing findings are consistent with the idea of a stalled gender revolution and illustrate that socialization theory is not gender neutral.

Immigrants' demand for informal and formal education: evidence from US time use data

This paper contributes to the migration literature studying the time devoted to educational activities. It uses US time-diary surveys to study the allocation of time to informal as well as formal learning and educational activities by immigrants and natives. We develop a simple theoretical framework, which highlights the different constraints/opportunity costs faced by immigrants as compared with natives. Consistently with our theoretical model, the estimates show that immigrants are more likely to engage in informal and formal education and conditional on participation, they allocate more time to these activities. We find that the main drivers are economic incentives, mostly in the early phase of working life, and that the differences between natives and immigrants persist across generations. We also find that differences between immigrants and natives are generally larger in informal education than in formal education. The investment in informal and formal learning and educational activities is likely to boost immigrants' human and social capital and contribute to their socio-economic integration.

What do people learn from following the news? A diary study on the influence of media use on knowledge of current news stories

One of the main functions of news media in democracies is informing the citizenry on day-to-day affairs. However, the way in which citizens gather news has changed as nowadays people have more opportunities than ever before to adapt their media consumption based on their preferences. One of the major game changers was the introduction of social media. This raises the question to what extent traditional media still contribute to people’s knowledge of current affairs. Using a time-diary study in the Flemish media context, we investigate the influence of different forms of news consumption on current news knowledge. We conclude that traditional (print and audiovisual) media, including popular outlets, continue to be the major contributors to people’s knowledge about current affairs and that social media hardly contribute at all.

Timing of Daily Activities over a 24-Hour Period and Affective Status among a National Cohort of Older Dementia Caregivers

Objective: To examine the allocation of daily activities over a 24-hour period in caregivers (CGs) with and without a probable affective disorder. Methods: Participants were 192 older dementia CGs (mean age = 72.9 years, 70% female) who participated in the National Study of Caregiving. Time diary data were used to measure the duration and timing that caregivers were doing hygienic self-care, eating/drinking, household care, physical caregiving, medical caregiving, socializing, and television viewing. Affective status was assessed using the two-item Patient Health Questionnaire and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder screeners. Results: CGs were more likely to screen positive for depression/anxiety symptoms if they started hygienic self-care later (OR = 1.76, 95% CI = 1.10–2.83) and started medical caregiving later (OR = 2.34, 95% CI = 1.24–4.41). Hygienic self-care start times attenuated the effects of medical caregiving on the affective status. Discussion: Later timing of hygienic self-care may be an important behavioral response that contributes to affective disorder risk in dementia CGs.

Disparities in Alone Time: Using an Intersectional Framework to Examine Social Isolation

Over the last several decades, there has been an increase in the number of single person households which has implications for how much time people are spending alone and who is socially isolated. Using an intersectional framework, I examine how gender and race-ethnicity shape how much time people spend alone by analyzing time diary data from the American Time Use Survey, 2003-2018. Following McCall’s (2005) method of intercategorical intersectional analysis, I find that Black men spend the most time alone compared to seven other gender-race groups. I also find that marriage and employment have varying effects on how much time each group spends alone with Black men, unemployed persons, and older adults spending more time alone than other groups. This research highlights the importance of examining how much time people spend alone by both gender and race and identifies groups who may be at greater risk of social isolation due to disparate rates of time spent alone.

Does Parental Separation Affect Children’s Time Use? Evidence from Longitudinal Time-Diary Data

How children use their time is critical for their health, emotional, and cognitive development. Studies typically find that parental divorce lowers child development, due to a decline in parents’ monetary and time resources. Yet, little is known on how parental separation affects child time use. This study fills this relevant knowledge gap by using prospective time-diary data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), a unique survey following children’s time use across six waves (N = 14,862 observations from 3,719 children). Results from both random and fixed effects models provide four main findings: (i) mother-child time increases dramatically after parental separation, at the expense of children’s time with two parents, while father-child time stays low both before and after parental separation; (ii) after parental separation, children slightly decrease their time in educational activities and increase substantially their time in unstructured activities; (iii) boys’ developmental time use is harmed by parental separation to a higher degree than girls’; and (iv) parents in high socio-economic backgrounds tend to compensate more effectively for the potential negative consequences of divorce by investing more time in children, compared to parents in unprivileged social backgrounds. Our findings have important implications for family policy. Results point to the need of spreading joint custody to improve gender equality in parental childcare time after divorce, as well as promoting greater support for boys and disadvantaged families in dealing with the adverse effects of parental union dissolution on children’s daily routines, development, and life chances.

The Gender Gap in Market Work Hours Among Canadians: Examining Essential(ist) Linkages to Parenting Time and Household Labour Hours

Using 2015 Canadian time diary data, we analyse how the gender gap in market work hours is linked to gender inequality in parenting time and household labour hours (N = 2,296). Among Canadians who are 15–34 years of age, we examine three family groupings, single without children, married without children and married with children. For the married with children group, we focus on respondents with at least one child aged 0–4 years. We find that the gender gap in market work is not significant for those single and married without children. For the married without children group, a gender gap exists for household labour. This suggests that a gender gap in household labour exists prior to the onset of children. As expected, a large gender gap in market work presents itself for married/common law respondents with young children. Half of the gender gap in market work is explained by household labour hours and parenting time. Our study demonstrates that time allocations contribute substantively to gender inequality in market work. Yet, the large unexplained part of the gap suggests that this issue is larger and more complex than mere bargaining decisions about domestic and market time. JEL: I24, J13, J16, C10