Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

By What Measure? Family Time Devoted To Children In The U.S., Nancy Folbre, Jayoung Yoon, Kade Finnoff, Allison Sidle Fuligni

Economics Department Working Paper Series

We argue that previous research on time devoted to child care has devoted insufficient attention to the definition and conceptualization of care time. Three separate problems are evident. First, the conventional focus on explicit activities with children distracts attention from the larger responsibilities of “passive” care, which ranges from time when children are sleeping to time when they are in the same room but not engaged in an activity with parents. Second, empirical analysis of activity time focuses almost exclusively on parents, overlooking the role of relatives such as grandmothers and siblings. Third, measurement of active care time typically ignores …