Fathers' Childcare and Housework
Fathers' Childcare and Housework: The Difference between Participation and Amount of Time
Men's involvement in childcare has attracted attention of researchers in various fields in the last years. Most studies have focused on the amount of time for childcare of men who report more than zero minutes, neglecting that a considerable portion of men does not take part in childcare on the survey day at all. This article aims at contrasting fathers' participation in childcare and participating fathers' amount of time in childcare. The main research questions are whether predictors of fathers' participation in childcare differ from predictors of participating fathers' minutes of childcare. In addition, I am interested in differences between countries and different points in time. The sample is drawn from the Multinational Time Use Study (MTUS) and covers surveys from nine industrialised countries from 1987 to 2005. It consists of fathers aged 20 to 55 living with a partner and having at least one child. Results show that there are remarkable differences between factors influencing participation in childcare and factors associated with participating fathers' time spend with children. For example, the educational level has a strong impact on fathers' participation, but not on the amount of time for childcare. In contrast, whether it is weekday or weekend hardly affect participation, but strongly affect fathers' time for childcare. In addition, there are also noticeable differences between the countries regarding factors influencing childcare participation and time. I conclude that fathers' participation in childcare is a conscious ex-ante decision, while the amount of time of participating fathers depends on time availability.
Présenté par Nora Reich (Hamburg Institute for International Economics -- HHWI) - Discutante: Ariane Pailhé