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parental(andcommunity)resourcesmay be critical in determiningwhich childrenengage in activities that enhanceintellectualgrowth,encourage responsibility,andgenerallysteerchildrentoward a productive adulthood. The human and
social capitalof childhoodarebuilt over time and
throughthe activities in which children engage
andthe qualityof the resourcesandsocial interactions thatsurroundthem.
However,we know relativelylittle abouthow
children spend their time. To date, there have
been only a handfulof time-diarystudiesof children'stime use, most of limitedscope. Nor do we
know how children'stime in activities varies in
differenttypes of families, althoughfamilies are
presumedto providevaryingdegreesof access to
the social capitalneededfor the successfuldevelopmentof humanpotential.
In this article,we conductan exploratoryanalysis of the amountof daily time childrenspendin
an arrayof activitiesthat might be deemed relevant to their accumulationof skills duringchildhood. We review the literatureon the interrelationship among family characteristicsand parents' and children's time use. With 1989-1990
time diarydatafor childrenin California,we examine the time childrenspend in four important
activities: reading or being read to, studying,
doing housework,and watchingTV. We address
fourquestionsaboutthe interrelationship
between
family characteristicsand time spentin these activities.
(a) Do children of motherswho are at
home full-time spend more time in cognitive enhancingactivities, such as reading,
than children of mothers who are in the
paid labor force? Are there differencesin
the amount of time children spend doing
housework,watching TV, or studying by
the laborforce statusof theirmother?
(b) Do children in two-parent households spend more time reading, doing
household chores, and studying, and less
time watching TV than children in oneparenthouseholds?
(c) Do children in smaller families
spend more time in these four activities
thanchildrenin largerfamilies?
(d) Finally,how does parentaleducation
relate to these activities? Do children of
better educated parents spend more time
studyingand readingand less time watching TV thanchildrenof less well educated
parents?
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STUDIESOF CHILDREN'STIMEUSE
Most previous time-use research on children's activities has focused on the time parents spend interacting with children (primarily preschool-age),
rather than on how these children themselves
spend their time. Although some studies of children's activity patterns have been undertaken
(Beschen, 1972; Medrich, Roisen, Rubin, &
Buckley, 1982; Wallace, 1987), very few of them
have been conducted with large, representative
samples that also provide full coverage of all
daily activities. The one exception to this was a
1981 study of 229 children conducted as a followup of parents interviewed in the 1975 University
of Michigan National Time Use Study (Juster &
Stafford, 1985). However, these data are now
over 15 years old, were obtained from a sample
with less than a 30% response rate, and did not
cover all activities.
Parental Education
In Timmer, Eccles, and O'Brien's (1985) analysis
of the 1981 Michigan data, higher parental education was correlated with more studying, less TV
watching, and more reading on the part of children. They highlighted the longstanding interest
in children's cognitive development and acquisition of aggressive behaviors that characterized the
developmental psychology literature on television
viewing. Underlying the concerns about children's time in front of the TV is the assumption
that, if children viewed less TV, they would engage in other, "more productive" activities like
reading. The 1981 survey showed a large amount
of television viewing on the part of children that
peaked at ages 11 to 12, but it was not clear that
less TV viewing resulted in children spending
more time in activities like reading. Yet the more
television that 9- to 17-year-old children watched,
the lower their scores on a standardized reading
comprehension test (Timmer et al., 1985, p. 370).
Whether less able readers selected to watch more
TV or whether large amounts of TV viewing limited reading comprehension was not clear, given
the cross-sectional nature of the 1981 time-diary
data for children.
The most extensive previous research related to
how children spend time comes indirectly from
educational differences in parental time with children. Early studies of parents of preschoolers suggested that college-educated mothers did devote
more time to child care than less well-educated
mothers. In addition, the quality of interaction was
335
1970s, Bryantand Zick (1992) reachedthe conclusion that the reduced time for children concomitantwith the rise in marriedmothers'participationin the laborforce may be overstated.Larger families and the relatively heavy burden of
domestic and unpaidagriculturalwork that was
requiredof mothersin earlierdecadeslimitedthe
time mothers had to spend with children. Although the direct time spent with a given child
probablyhas decreasedsomewhatfor very young
children,BryantandZick estimatedthatmaternal
time actually has increasedfor school-age childrenover the courseof this century.
Robinson (1993) found that mothers in his
1985 national time-diary survey spent just as
much time with children,on average,as mothers
in a 1965 nationalsurvey.Moreover,if the higher
maternalemployment levels of 1985 are taken
into account,it couldbe arguedthatmothersgave
childrenslightly more of their available time at
the laterpoint.
Recent evidence by Bryant and Zick (1996)
suggests that the activities parentsdo with children changes with a mother'semployment.Maternalemploymentmay actuallyincreaseleisure
time and houseworktime thatis sharedwith children. On the other hand, it also decreases time
spent in direct family care and supervision of
children.
Single Parenting
The researchon single parenting,as with maternal employment, often has been beset with
methodologicalproblems,particularlythe failure
to controlfor socioeconomicdifferences.However, recent research,which does adequatelymeasure differencesin family income between oneandtwo-parentfamilies,suggeststhatonly half of
the poorer outcomes of children who grow up
with one parentcan be attributedto economicfactors(McLanahan& Sandefur,1994).
McLanahanand Sandefurarguethat much of
the rest of the differencecan be explainedby differences in parentalinvolvement.Maintaininga
single-parentfamilycurtailsthe time thatmothers
(andfathers)areable or willing to invest in monitoring children's activities, supervising homework, and developingrelationshipswith teachers
and parentsof children'sfriends.This argument
suggests there are importantdifferencesin children's activity patternsin one- and two-parent
families.However,althoughTimmeret al. (1985)
found that childrenof single parentsin the 1981
time-diarystudy watchedmore TV on weekends
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DATAANDMETHODS
337
338
339
TABLE 1. TIME THAT CHILDREN SPEND READING, WATCHING TV, STUDYING, AND DOING HOUSEHOLD CHORES
Reading
WatchingTV
Studying
Doing
Housework
27%
45
12
89%
168
150
22%
63
14
40%
54
22
340
Mean/
Percentage
Controlvariables
Child is male
Child is minority
Child's age (in years)
Weekend diary day
Summerinterview
Parentaleducation
Less thanhigh school
High school graduate
Some college
College graduate
(Postgraduate)
1988 family income (in $10,000)
One-parentfamily
Mother's labor force status
Employed full-time
Employed part-time
Student
Other-looking, laid off, retired
(Keeping house)
Numberof children
51%
30%
7.09
37%
30%
100%
11%
33%
29%
12%
15%
3.44
20%
100%
42%
19%
5%
7%
27%
2.16
100%
Sibling position
28%
Only child
Oldest child-1 (or more) siblings
21%
(Youngerchild-1 (or more) siblings) 51%
SD
50%
46%
2.70
48%
46%
32%
47%
46%
33%
35%
8.54
40%
49%
39%
22%
25%
44%
1.04
45%
40%
50%
Table 3 displays estimates from the tobit equations predicting time spent reading, watching TV,
studying, and doing housework. Before turning to
the family composition indicators, a comment on
the control variables is in order. The control for
whether the diary charts activities for a weekend
or a weekday shows that children watch more
TV, study less, and do more housework on the
weekends than during the week. Not surprisingly,
the estimate of time spent studying is greatly reduced in summer interviews.
Three demographic characteristics of the child
are included in the model, largely as control variables: the child's age, minority status, and gender.
The most important is age. Not surprisingly, as
age increases, the likelihood of studying, doing
household chores, and TV viewing increases.
Among 3- to 11-year-olds, the likelihood of reading (or being read to) does not differ significantly
by age. There are no major differences between
minority and nonminority children, except that
White, non-Hispanic children (the omitted category in the regression) spend slightly more time
doing household chores. Finally, there are two
gender differences of note. Boys may spend
slightly more time in front of the TV, and boys
spend significantly less time doing household
chores than girls. This finding of a significant
gender difference in housework among young
children parallels the findings for teenagers (and
young adults living at home) reported by Goldscheider and Waite (1991).
Our main research questions revolve around
whether family environments-particularly the
level of parental education, maternal employment, single parenting, and family size-influence the likelihood of a child participating in various activities. Our multivariate findings suggest
the following.
Parental Education and Income
Children's time spent reading or being read to is
significantly higher in households in which the
parents are college educated. Minutes spent reading per day do not differ between children who
live with a college graduate and children who live
with a parent who has attended graduate school or
completed postgraduate education (the omitted
category). However, children of parents who have
attended (but not completed) college, who are
high school graduates, or who did not complete
high school read fewer minutes per day than children of college graduates. In addition, the higher
341
Reading
Intercept
Controlvariables
Child is male
Child is minority
Child's age
Weekend diaryday
Summerinterview
Parentaleducation
Less thanhigh school
High school graduate
Some college
College graduate
Family income (in $10,000)
One-parentfamily
Mother's labor force status
Employed full-time
Employedpart-time
Student
Other-looking, laid off, retired
Numberof children
Sibling position
Only child
Oldest child-i (or more) siblings
-14.86
Studying
Doing
Housework
8.66
-104.28***
-94.65***
-9.27
-7.62
-1.05
-13.58*
4.01
18.11*
16.66
10.26***
41.46***
2.00
-11.84
7.56
17.77***
-96.28***
-86.50***
-16.37**
-15.43*
7.38***
17.01**
5.94
-30.98**
-37.27***
-34.87***
-12.17
82.29***
42.76***
28.94**
0.35
-0.85
0.47
-6.47
-25.78**
-34.03***
-17.47
-21.29
-8.62
-12.24
-19.98
-0.20
-14.12
0.98***
4.64
-5.65
12.75
11.08
-1.41
1.28
9.47
1.45
75.28**
-1619
Sigma
Log likelihood
WatchingTV
-0.60
0.71
-16.02
17.27
0.77
-29.80
3.35
1.11
-30.62**
-40.62*
0.27
5.11
5.39
2.22
132.27***
-5042
11.94
11.75
85.63***
-1486
5.42
-3.84
11.68
-23.38
13.67***
14.25
-11.59
92.1***
-2467
342
343
NOTE
We wouldlike to acknowledgethe helpfulcommentsof
Melissa Milkie, HarrietPresser,and three anonymous
reviewers.We also benefitedfrom the researchassistance of LekhaSubaiyaand RongjunSun, thanksto a
training grant from the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundationto the Centeron Population,Gender,and
Social Inequality,Departmentof Sociology, University
of Maryland.
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