The relationship between household duties division and children’s late-night responsibilities: Factors influencing their role as young (adult) carers

Erika Ando ()
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Erika Ando: Graduate School of Economics, Waseda University

No 2503, Working Papers from Waseda University, Faculty of Political Science and Economics

Abstract: This study aims to clarify that imbalances in the division of time within children’s household may lead to them becoming young (adult) carers. When we accurately discuss young (adult) carers, we should define them with a specific range of age, household environment, responsibilities, and level of burden. However, deciding on the last term is hard because it depends on children’s characteristics. We then introduce the concept of "potential" young (adult) carers: children under 25 burdened with home duties. In addition, we focus on two-parent households. In two-parent households, if the parental division of home duties is functional, it is expected that children would not need to sacrifice rest time to engage in them; therefore, if children engage in home duties during times when they should be sleeping, we would observe a situation suggesting potential young (adult) carers and a lack of functional home duties division within their household. We use the cross-sectional data from time use and leisure activities conducted by the Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in 2011 and 2016. We analyze the relationship between the mother’s home-duty time and the likelihood of children engaging in them late-night time. As the major results, we found that children tend to be potential young (adult) carers if (i) the mother’s homeduty and commuting time increase, children tend to do during times when they should be sleeping. In contrast, the father’s home-duty and commuting time decrease, children tend to do during times when they should be sleeping, (ii) father’s social status is low, (iii) when the child is female, there is a significant association with engaging in home duties at late-night.

Keywords: young (adult) carers; two-parent household; home-duty time; imbalance in the division of time (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2025-04
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