The Time Economy of Parenting

Anne Gray

Sociological Research Online, 2006, vol. 11, issue 3, 1-15

Abstract: This paper explores how the UK Time Use Survey (UKTUS), together with the author's qualitative interviews and focus groups with London parents, can inform current policy debates about childcare and parental employment. It also refers to the international literature about long-term trends in parental childcare time. It addresses four key questions about time use and parenting, which have implications for theorisation of the ‘gender contract’ regarding childcare and for our understanding of the gendered distribution of time between care, work and leisure in two-parent families. How is total parenting time affected by parents’ work hours? How do the long work weeks of British fathers affect their capacity to share childcare with mothers? Would childcare time rise if work hours were more equally distributed between women and men? This invokes a discussion of how far childcare is really transferable between parents (or can be delegated to external carers); to what extent is it ‘work’ or a relational activity?

Keywords: Fatherhood Gender; Contract Parenting Time; Use Work; Life; Balance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5153/sro.1393 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socres:v:11:y:2006:i:3:p:1-15

DOI: 10.5153/sro.1393

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Research Online
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().