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

本项目将使用高质量的个人活动日记数据与几个工业化国家的国家级机构数据相匹配，以探索父母教育与父母对儿童的时间投入之间的关系，这种关系在过去50年里是如何变化的，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，父母在孩子身上投入的时间都有所增加，尤其是受过高等教育的父母（Aguiar和Hurst 2007； Jimenez-Nadal和Sevilla-Sanz 2011）。考虑到大多数发达国家生育率的下降、女性劳动力参与率的增加和家庭生产活动的减少，尤其是受过高等教育的母亲（Bianchi, Robinson, and Milkie 2006; Sevilla-Sanz, 2010），父母时间的增加令人惊讶。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。鉴于政府对减少不平等现象的兴趣，这项研究将成为评估不同制度变量对不同教育程度的父母与子女相处时间的影响的第一项研究，从而增加了关于机会从父母传递给子女的工作。在某种程度上，受教育程度较低的父母与子女相处的时间少于受教育程度较高的父母，受教育程度较低的父母参与的儿童保育活动不太可能为子女的人力资本做出贡献，因此，早期干预可以使不同社会阶层背景的家庭与子女相处的时间均等。该项目将分为两个主要部分。第一部分将记录不同教育背景的父母在父母时间投入上的变化，这在文献中被称为父母时间的“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，这项研究将着眼于经济类型（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会对父母陪伴孩子的时间产生不同的影响，因为受过教育的父母往往生的孩子更少，因此可能有更多的时间陪伴孩子。第三种解释将着眼于收入的作用，因为在过去几十年里，受过良好教育的父母的工资收入增长得更多。第四种解释与安全问题有关，事实上，对安全的高度关注可能会促使父母（尤其是受过高等教育的父母）陪伴孩子参加活动。第五种解释将着眼于不同教育背景的父母的不同养育方式，以及来自不同社会阶层的父母对与孩子相处时间的影响。上大学的愿望将构成第六种解释。这背后的理由是，受过大学教育的父母比受教育程度较低的父母更容易被卷入大学入学竞争。第七种解释将着眼于灵活的工作实践，这对于理解父母时间的教育梯度趋势非常重要，只要社会经济地位较高的父母有更大的能力协调工作和家庭。该项目将研究的最后一个解释是家庭构成。在英国，很多孩子在人生的某个阶段生活在单亲家庭中，这样做可能会带来一些不利因素。鉴于对儿童福利的关注，特别需要将他们纳入分析。

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.