April 06, 2010

Interesting article on family and how parents are spending their time. A new study has found that mothers and fathers are spending more time with their families than parents of earlier generations did. For the study, two economists at UC San Diego analyzed surveys from 1965-2007 on how Americans spend their time. They found that the amount of time parents devote to child care has risen "dramatically" since the mid-1990s. And this is among parents of all income levels. Before 1995, mothers spent an average of 12 hours a week caring for children. By 2007, the number had risen to 21.2 hours a week for college-educated women and 15.9 hours for those with less education. Mother continue to do the most child care, but fathers are dedicating more time than in the past. College-educated men now spend an average of 9.6 hours a week caring for children; before 1995, it was 4.5 hours. For less-educated men, the average is now 6.8 hours; an increase from 3.7 hours. And these hours reflect the amount of time in which parents are directly involved in the child's care, and not just when the parent is "around" their children (like at the dinner table or when the child is in solitary play). One of the co-authors explained, "It's taking them to school, helping with homework, bathing them, playing catch with them in the backyard. Those are the activities that have increased over the last 15 to 20 years."

In addition, parents are spending more of their child care time together. Among college-educated parents, 2 to 2.5 hours of this increased time in child care took place when both parents were together. Dr. Stevenson, an economist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said this trend reflects the rise in the "hedonic marriage", where couples share home and work responsibilities so they can spend more time together. She said, "We're seeing a rise in marriages where we're picking people we like to do activities with. So it's not surprising we're going to see that some of the activities we want to do together involve our children." We see more couples sharing tasks and doing child care together, whereas in the past couples from earlier generations typically had "specialized" roles, which tended to keep them apart (for example, the mother cared for the children and the father fixed stuff around the house or did lawn work).

With parents spending more time with their children, where is this extra time coming from? The study found that women, in particular, are spending less time cooking and cleaning, and fathers are putting in less hours at the office. A 2007 report in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that leisure time among men and women increased four to eight hours a week from 1965 to 2003.

In addition to the rise in child-centered time, the article also highlighted other recent family changes. For instance, couples are typically waiting longer to get married, couples are having children later, and divorce rates are dropping with each generation. In addition, children are no longer so widely viewed as essential to a successful marriage. In 1990, 65% of Americans said that children were "very important" to a successful marriage. By 2007, that number dropped to 41%. (Full Story)

It would have been interesting if they also discussed "Supermoms" -- moms that try to do it all: work for pay, care for the children, take care of the house, and help care for the husband. These moms might be increasing their child care time, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're also reducing time elsewhere. Instead, they're just putting a lot more on their plate, so to speak, and are trying to balance it all. Sociologists like Arlie Hochschild studied Supermoms in the 90s and found that employed mothers performed nearly the same number of daily household and child care activities as full-time mothers (these mothers experienced what Hochschild called a "second shift"). I wonder if the Supermom phenomena is more common or less common today (or about the same)? For instance, this new study found that mothers are now spending less time cooking and cleaning, and fathers are working less and increasing the amount of time they dedicate to child care -- which could indicate a reduction in Supermoms because fathers are sharing more tasks and domestic tasks are taking up less of their time. But at the same time, in most families there are dual-earners (i.e., both parents work), and yet mothers spend 21.2 hours a week on average caring for the children while fathers spend 9.6 hours a week on average (among college-educated parents). That's still an unequal burden. Fathers are indeed increasing their family time, but women still are doing the most (despite also having paid jobs). So it seems like mothers are still having to deal the most with the dilemma of balancing paid work and childcare, which would lead me to believe that there are still plenty of Supermoms. Yes, the study mentioned that leisure time has increased among parents (since 1965!) -- but it still seems pretty minuscule. Eight hours a week, on average, isn't exactly a huge amount of leisure time. Plus, reducing the amount of time that is spent on cooking and cleaning doesn't necessarily mean that's more leisure time for the mother. Instead, that probably means more time devoted to child care tasks -- which is a good thing (spending more time with your child), but at the same time, it's another task the mother is having to do and another thing she is having to balance with work. She's trying to work hard at her job and not have her family suffer, while trying to spend time with her family without fearing that her work will suffer. I think the type of tasks a mother is doing won't necessarily change the Supermom phenomenon (whether her second shift consists of doing 50% house work and 50% child care, or if it consists of 100% child care), what will change it is the amount of tasks. In other words, only once there is more of an equal sharing among childcare and household tasks between the mother and the father (more of a 50-50 divide) will women not feel as overwhelmed and feel like they have to do it all. Only then will we see a reduction in the second shift for mothers.