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A Review of the Literature on the Social and Economic Determinants of Parental Time

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Abstract

Parental time has been identified as a key determinant in the healthy development of a child. The literature on this topic has rapidly increased in recent years and has revealed large variations in the amount of time that parents devote to their children, including variations over time and across social and economic subgroups of the population. This paper synthesizes research devoted to parental time to provide a more succinct understanding of its significance and its variations. Beginning with the measurement issues associated with parental time research and the theoretical foundations, the paper goes on to document the social and economic determinants of parental time. It concludes with a discussion of the theoretical implications of the findings and suggestions for future research.

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Notes

  1. There has been much discussion in the literature about this rationality assumption; however this debate is beyond the scope of this paper. Interested readers are referred to Folbre (1994) for a discussion of the criticism of this assumption. In addition, other authors have also criticized the unitary assumption, i.e. the assumption that there is only one unique set of preferences per household; for example preferences regarding time allocation made by the household as a single unit (Bergstrom 1997).

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Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by a grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The paper was revised while the second author was a fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

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Correspondence to Berenice Monna.

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Monna, B., Gauthier, A.H. A Review of the Literature on the Social and Economic Determinants of Parental Time. J Fam Econ Iss 29, 634–653 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-008-9121-z

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