Parental time investments in children across countries and over time: What are the implications for inequality?

该项目将使用与几个工业化国家的国家一级机构数据相匹配的关于个人活动的高质量日记数据，以探讨父母教育与父母对子女的时间投资之间的关系，这种关系在过去五十年中如何变化，以及这些趋势背后的因素。最近的证据表明，在所有发达国家，父母对子女的时间投资都有所增加，特别是受过高等教育的父母（Aguiar和Hurst，2007年; Jimenez-Nadal和Sevilla-Sanz，2011年）。考虑到大多数发达国家生育率下降、女性劳动力参与率上升以及家庭生产活动减少，尤其是对受过高等教育的母亲而言，育儿时间的增加令人惊讶（比安奇、罗宾逊和Milkie，2006年; Sevilla-Sanz，2010年）。该项目将通过探索父母时间投资趋势背后的原因，为社会经济文献做出贡献。这项研究的政策相关性是显而易见的。考虑到政府对减少不平等的兴趣，这项研究将成为评估不同制度变量对教育程度不同的父母与子女相处时间的影响的第一项研究，从而增加关于父母向子女传递机会的工作。由于教育程度较低的父母与教育程度较高的父母相比，与子女在一起的时间较少，而且教育程度较低的父母所从事的儿童保育活动不太可能对其子女的人力资本作出贡献，因此有可能采取早期干预措施，使来自不同社会阶层背景的家庭与子女在一起的时间均等。该项目将分为两个主要部分。第一部分将记录具有不同教育背景的父母的父母时间投资的变化，文献中称之为父母时间的“教育梯度”。该项目的第二部分旨在解释各国不同教育背景的父母在儿童保育方面的趋势。首先，本研究将探讨经济类型（根据社会公平、福利提供和性别意识形态的水平）是否与父母时间的教育梯度有任何关系。其次，这项研究将调查生育率的下降是否可能对父母与子女相处的时间产生不同的影响，因为受过教育的父母往往生育较少的子女，因此可能有更多的时间与他们相处。第三种解释将着眼于收入的作用，因为在过去几十年中，受过良好教育的父母的（工资）收入增加得更多。第四种解释与安全问题有关，对安全问题的高度关注可能会促使父母（特别是受过高等教育的父母）陪同子女参加活动。第五种解释将着眼于不同教育背景的父母的不同育儿实践，以及来自不同社会阶层的父母对与子女相处时间的影响。大学理想将构成第六个解释。其背后的理由是，受过大学教育的父母将比受教育程度较低的父母更容易被吸引到大学入学竞争中。第七种解释将着眼于灵活的工作做法，这对于理解育儿时间内教育梯度的趋势很重要，因为社会经济地位较高的父母更有能力兼顾工作和家庭。该项目将研究的最后一个解释是家庭组成。在英国，大量的儿童在生活中的某个阶段生活在单亲家庭中，可能会因此而遭受一些不利因素。鉴于对儿童福利的重视，特别需要将其纳入分析。

This project will use high quality diary data on individual's activities matched to country-level institutional data for several industrialized countries to explore the relationship between parental education and parental time investments in children, how this relationship has changed over the last five decades, and the factors underlying these trends. Recent evidence shows that parental time investments in children have increased in all developed countries, especially for highly educated parents (Aguiar and Hurst 2007; Jimenez-Nadal and Sevilla-Sanz 2011). The increase in parental time is surprising, given the declines in fertility, the increase in female labour force participation, and declines in home production activities in most developed countries, particularly for highly educated mothers (Bianchi, Robinson, and Milkie 2006; Sevilla-Sanz, 2010). This project will contribute to the socio-economic literature by exploring the causes behind trends in parental time investments. The policy relevance of this research is clear. Given the Government's interest in reducing inequality, this study will add to the body of work on the transmission of opportunities from parents to children by being the first study to assess the impact of the different institutional variables on the time parents with different educational attainment spend with their children. To the extent that less educated parents spend less time with their children than higher educated parents, and that less educated parents engage in child care activities that are less likely to contribute to the human capital of their children, there is scope for early interventions to equalize time with children across families from different social class backgrounds. The project will be dividing in two major parts. The first part will document changes in parental time investment for parents with different educational background, what has been called in the literature the "education gradient" of parental time. The second part of the project will aim to explain trends in child care by parents of different educational background across countries. First this study will look at whether the type of economy (according to the level of social equity, welfare provision and gender ideologies) has any relationship with the education gradient in parental time. Second, the study will investigate whether decreases in fertility may have had a differential impact on the time parents spend with children, as educated parents tend to have fewer children and thus may have more time to spend time with them. The third explanation will look at the role of income, as (wage) income has increased more for better educated parents over the last few decades. The fourth explanation has to do with safety concerns, and the fact that heightened concerns about safety may induce parents (especially highly educated parents) to accompany their children in their activities. The fifth explanation will look at the differing parenting practices that have been documented for parents with different educational backgrounds and the impact on the time spent with children by parents from diverging social class. College aspirations will constitute the sixth explanation. The rationale behind it is that college-educated parents will be drawn into the competition for college admissions more so than less educated parents. The seventh explanation will look at flexible working practices, which will be important in understanding the trends in the education gradient in parental time as long as the ability to reconcile work and family is greater for parents with a higher socio-economic status. The last explanation that the project will study is family composition. Large numbers of children in the UK live in lone parent families at some point in their lives and may suffer some disadvantages from doing so. Given the focus on children's welfare, there is a special need to include them in the analysis.