Time for Children: Trends in the Employment Patterns of Parents, 1967-2009

38 Pages Posted: 20 Jun 2011

See all articles by Liana Fox

Liana Fox

Stockholm University - Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI)

WenJui Han

Columbia University - School of Social Work

Christopher J. Ruhm

University of Virginia - Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Jane Waldfogel

IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Columbia University - School of Social Work; London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE)

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Abstract

Utilizing data from the 1967-2009 years of the March Current Population Surveys, we examine two important resources for children's well-being: time and money. We document trends in parental employment, from the perspective of children, and show what underlies these trends. We find that increases in family work hours mainly reflect movements into jobs by parents who, in prior decades, would have remained at home. This increase in market work has raised incomes for children in the typical two-parent family but not for those in lone-parent households. Time use data from 1975 and 2003-2008 reveal that working parents spend less time engaged in primary childcare than their counterparts without jobs but more than employed peers in previous cohorts. Analysis of 2004 work schedule data suggests that non-daytime work provides an alternative method of coordinating employment schedules for some dual-earner families.

Keywords: parental employment, child care time, work family balance, coordinated work schedules

JEL Classification: J13, J22

Suggested Citation

Fox, Liana and Han, WenJui and Ruhm, Christopher J. and Waldfogel, Jane, Time for Children: Trends in the Employment Patterns of Parents, 1967-2009. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5761, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1867030 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1867030

Liana Fox (Contact Author)

Stockholm University - Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) ( email )

Kyrkgatan 43B
SE-106 91 Stockholm
Sweden

WenJui Han

Columbia University - School of Social Work ( email )

622 W. 113th Street
New York, NY 10025
United States

Christopher J. Ruhm

University of Virginia - Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy ( email )

235 McCormick Rd.
P.O. Box 400893
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4893
United States
434-924-7581 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://batten.virginia.edu/cruhm.html

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Jane Waldfogel

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

Columbia University - School of Social Work ( email )

622 W. 113th Street
New York, NY 10025
United States

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) ( email )

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
59
Abstract Views
823
Rank
495,746
PlumX Metrics