How does parental time relate to social class in a Nordic welfare state?

Time intensive parenting has spread in Western countries. This study contributes to the literature on parental time use, aiming to deepen our understanding of the relationship between parental childcare time and social class. Based on time-diary data (2010–2011) from Norway, and a concept of social class that links parents’ amount and composition of economic and cultural capital, we examine the time spent by parents on childcare activities. The analysis shows that class and gender intersect: intensive motherhood, as measured by time spent on active childcare, including developmental childcare activities thought to stimulate children's skills, is practised by all mothers. A small group of mothers in the economic upper-middle class fraction spend even more time on childcare than the other mothers. The time fathers spend on active childcare is less than mothers’, and intra-class divisions are notable. Not only lower-middle class fathers, but also cultural/balanced upper-middle class fathers spend the most time on intensive fathering. Economic upper-middle and working-class fathers spend the least time on childcare. This new insight into class patterns in parents’ childcare time challenges the widespread notion of different cultural childcare logics in the middle class, compared to the working class.

Frequency of Vaso-Occlusive Crises Is Associated with Health-Related Quality of Life in Pediatric Patients with Sickle Cell Disease: US Cross-Sectional Surveys of Adolescents and Caregivers

Introduction: Pediatric patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) experience considerable disease-related burden. SCD-related morbidity is characterized by vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs), which are acutely painful events that may cause chronic and potentially life-threatening complications, contributing to the early mortality associated with SCD. Two cross-sectional observational surveys were fielded to evaluate the relationship between VOC frequency and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in pediatric patients with SCD in the United States (US). Methods: Surveys were administered in 2 populations: adolescents with SCD ages 12-17 years (n=247) and caregivers (n=167) of children with SCD ages 2 months-11 years in the US. Adolescent participants first provided assent to participate, and their guardians provided permission. Adolescents then completed an online survey that included the Child Health Questionnaire-Child Form 45 (CHQ-CF45) and the Adult Sickle Cell Quality of Life Measurement Information System (ASCQ-Me) pain and sleep impact domains. After providing informed consent, caregivers completed an online survey assessing the HRQoL of their child with SCD; survey content was tailored to the age of their child. Caregivers of children ages 5-11 completed the CHQ-Parent Form 50 (CHQ-PF50) and the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) pain interference and sleep disturbance short forms (8a and 4a, respectively). Caregivers of children <5 completed the Infant/Toddler Quality of Life Questionnaire-Short Form 47 (ITQOL-SF47). Children were stratified according to the number of VOCs they experienced in the past 12 months (0-2 VOCs; ≥3 VOCs), and a series of general linear models were conducted to examine the relationship between VOC frequency and HRQoL domain scores, with children's age included as covariate. Statistical significance was evaluated using a significance level of 0.05; p-values were also compared to a Benjamini-Hochberg adjusted critical value. Results: In adolescents ages 12-17, higher frequencies of VOCs were associated with lower HRQoL: adolescents with more frequent VOCs reported greater impacts than adolescents with less frequent VOCs across all domains of HRQoL measured by the CHQ-CF45, including general health, physical functioning, role/social limitations, mental health, and family activities (p<0.05 for all) (Table 1). Pain and sleep (ASCQ-Me domains) were also associated with VOC frequency: greater impacts were observed among adolescents with more frequent VOCs (p<0.001 for both). Similar to adolescents, children < 12 who experienced more frequent VOCs exhibited lower HRQoL as reported by caregivers on most CHQ-PF50 and ITQOL-SF47 domains except those related to behavior and the ITQOL-SF47 change in health domain (Table 2). Children with more frequent VOCs also experienced greater pain interference and sleep disturbance than those with less frequent VOCs (p<0.01 for both PROMIS domains; Table 2). Among caregivers of children ages 5-11, those whose children experienced more frequent VOCs reported greater impacts on CHQ-PF50 parental time/emotions and family activity domains than those whose children experienced less frequent VOCs (p<0.01 for all; Table 2). Caregivers of children ages 2 months-4 years also reported a similar association between VOC frequency and the ITQOL-SF47 parental time domain (p<0.01; Table 2). ITQOL-SF47 parental emotional impact scores also differed when compared to a significance level of 0.05, but were not statistically different after adjusting for multiple comparisons. Conclusions: Via both self- and caregiver-reports, these surveys demonstrated significant detrimental impact of VOCs on pediatric patients with SCD. Decrements were observed across various domains of HRQoL, including general health, physical functioning, pain, sleep, role/social limitations, and mental health. VOC frequency negatively impacted family activities and caregiver time and emotions, confirming anecdotal evidence that the effects of VOCs extend beyond the child to the caregiver. Given the cross-sectional study design, these analyses did not establish a temporal or causal relationship between VOCs and HRQoL; however, it is plausible that treatments aimed at reducing the frequency of VOCs may alleviate some of the burden experienced by pediatric patients with SCD and their families. Figure 1 Figure 1. Disclosures Campbell: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation: Consultancy, Research Funding. Rizio: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation: Other: Avery Rizio is employed by QualityMetric Incorporated, LLC, which received funding from Novartis to conduct this research. McCausland: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation: Other: Kristen McCausland is an employee of QualityMetric Incorporated, LLC, which received funding from Novartis to conduct this research. Iorga: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation: Current Employment, Current equity holder in publicly-traded company. Yen: Novartis Pharmaceuticals: Current Employment; Merck & Co., Inc.: Current holder of stock options in a privately-held company, Ended employment in the past 24 months. Paulose: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation: Current Employment. Lee: Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation: Current Employment.

When the last child moves out: Continuity and convergence in spouses' housework time

Objective: To examine how mothers’ and fathers’ time allocation for housework changes during the transition to postparenthood, i.e. when the last child moves out of their family households. Background: When the last child moves out, parental households are sized back to the situation before parenthood. Mothers and fathers are released from their direct parenting roles and parental time binds. This transition creates a context in which individual and coupled time allocation are likely to be rearranged. Methods: Changes in mothers’ and fathers’ housework time and mothers’ shares of total housework time were estimated using longitudinal fixed effects regression models, using data from the German Socio-economic Panel Study (1985-2019) on 1,004 households experiencing the transition to postparenthood. Results: Mothers’ time for housework declined by 11 minutes in the years before and by further 7 minutes per day at the transition to postparenthood, whereas fathers’ time declined by 6 minutes in the year after the last child has moved out of the parental household. Mothers’ share of total housework time remained constant around 72-75 percent around postparenthood. Analyses for different groups and specific tasks revealed no variations in the gendered trajectories of housework time. In general, mothers continued to do the majority of housework despite some slight convergence. Conclusion: The transition to postparenthood contributes slightly to the life-course convergence of housework time and thus, similar to all major life-course transitions following the birth of children, tends to reduce housework inequality in couples.

Parents' Nonstandard Work Schedules and Adolescent Social and Emotional Wellbeing

Increasing evidence shows that parents’ work schedules in evenings/nights have a negative impact on children's physical and mental health. Few studies examine adolescents and joint parental work schedules. We investigate the association between joint parental work schedules and adolescent mental health and test parental time spent with adolescents and parenting style as potential mediators. We analysed one wave of the Raine Study data, focusing on adolescents who were followed up at ages 16-17 and lived in dual-earner households (N=607). Adolescent mental health is measured in the Child Behavioural Checklist (morbidity, internalising behaviour, externalising behaviour, anxiety/depression). Parental work schedules were defined as: both parents work standard daytime schedules (reference), both parents work evening/night/irregular shifts, fathers work evening/night/irregular shifts - mother daytime schedule, mothers work evening/night/irregular shifts - father daytime schedule. Compared to the reference group, when one or both parents worked evening/night/irregular schedules, there was a significant increase in total morbidity, externalising behaviour and anxiety/depression in adolescents. Fathers' evening/night/irregular schedule was associated with a significant increase in total morbidity and externalising behaviour. Inconsistent parenting partially mediated this association. Mothers' evening/night/irregular schedule was not associated with adolescent CBCL scores. Our findings underscore the importance of fathers' work-family balance for adolescent mental health.

Parent Engagement Interventions Are Not Costless: Opportunity Cost and Crowd Out of Parental Investment

Many educational interventions encourage parents to engage in their child’s education as if parental time and attention is limitless. Sadly, though, it is not. Successfully encouraging certain parental investments may crowd out other productive behaviors. A randomized field experiment (N = 2,212) assessed the impact of an intervention in which parents of middle and high school students received multiple text messages per week encouraging them to ask their children specific questions tied to their science curriculum. The intervention increased parent–child at-home conversations about science but did not detectably impact science test scores. However, the intervention decreased parent engagement in other, potentially productive, parent behaviors. These findings illustrate that parent engagement interventions are not costless: There are opportunity costs to shifting parental effort.

Education in the times of a pandemic: parental socioeconomic characteristics and time spent educating children

PurposeThis research explores the impact of parental educational attainment, race, ethnicity, gender and employment on the time parents spend educating their children during the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachSchool closures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have affected billions of students worldwide, and have had an impact on the economy and the society. With classes being cancelled or taught remotely, the importance of parental intervention in children's education has accelerated.FindingsThe authors find that more educated parents allocate more time on child education, while higher income and employment have an adverse effect. Fathers are likely to spend more time than mothers in teaching and educating their children during COVID-19.Practical implicationsThe findings have implications in identifying children whose education suffers the most in times of a pandemic and determining the main target group of policies designed to train children, encourage parental involvement and support children's educational development.Originality/valueThis is the first paper that examines the variations in parental time with children across social and economic subgroups during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors also focus on the time parents spend educating their children rather than just supervising them. The authors additionally examine the determinants of the time children study on their own. Finally, the analysis is novel because it is based on the newest available data collected to examine the trends and experiences of individuals in the United States triggered by COVID-19.

Optimal Taxation of Families: Mirrlees meets Becker*

This paper studies optimal taxation of families—a combination of an income tax schedule and child tax credits. Child-rearing requires both goods and parental time, which distinctly impact the design of optimal child tax credits. In the quantitative analysis, I calibrate my model to the US economy and show that the optimal child tax credits are U-shaped in income and are decreasing in family size. In particular, the optimal credits decrease in the first nine deciles of the income distribution and then increase thereafter. Implementing the optimum yields large welfare gains.

Parental time restrictions and the cost of children: insights from a survey among mothers

An important aspect when analyzing economic inequality between households with children is time. At given monetary incomes, the material well-being of families may be very different depending on how much time parents have at their disposal. In this paper, we provide estimates of the subjectively perceived cost of children depending on the extent of parental time restrictions. Building on a study by Koulovatianos, Schröder and Schmidt (J. Bus. Econ. Stat. 27:42–51, 2009) that introduces a novel way of using subjective income evaluation data for such estimations, we conduct a refined version of the underlying survey, focusing on young women with children in Germany. Our study confirms that the perceived monetary cost of children is substantial and increases with parental nonmarket time restrictions. The experienced loss in material living standards associated with supplying time to the labor market is sizeable for families with children.