Parents nowadays spend more time with their kids, says study
Posted on: 12/Oct/2016 2:36:58 PM
A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of California says that the parents these days spend more time with their children than they used to spend with their kids in the mid-60s. Study findings were based on the Multinational Time Use Study Harmonized Simple Files, which focused on parents between the ages of 18 and 65 living in households with at least one child under the age of 13.
Say the researchers, According to economic theory, higher wages should discourage well-educated parents from foregoing work to spend extra time with youngsters. Also, they have the money to pay others to care for their children. Time spent with children involved everything from preparing their meals and snacks to feeding and bathing them, changing diapers and clothes, putting them to bed, getting up in the middle of the night, unpaid babysitting, providing medical care, reading and playing with them, as well as supervising and helping with homework.
The study results are in line with an intensive parenting ideology that has become a cultural child rearing trend. The time parents spend with children is regarded as critical for positive cognitive, behavioral and academic outcomes. Contemporary fathers - having more egalitarian gender views - want to be more involved in their children`s lives than their own dads were. These beliefs have taken hold among the best-educated residents of Western countries and are also diffusing to their counterparts who have less schooling.
