Citation

Zick CD, Bryant WK. Soc. Sci. Res. 1996; 25(3): 260-280.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1996, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1006/ssre.1996.0012

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Parental child care time has historically been narrowly defined to include only those child care activities where the parent's primary attention was occupied by the child. In this study, we expand this definition so that it includes parental reports of time where child care was a subsidiary activity. We find that suchsecondarychild care time comprises about one-third of all parental child care time. Time spent in both primary and secondary child care appear to be influenced by the gender of the parent, the age of the youngest child, the mother's hours of paid employment, household income, and residential location. Simulations suggest that mothers in two-parent, two-child families average between 13,729 and 15,439 h in the care of children from ages 0 to 18. The corresponding figures for the fathers are lower at 4150 to 4415 h.