Children's Time Use in Single‐ and Two‐Parent Families: Does Household Organization Matter?

Abstract

This study examines whether living in a single‐ versus two‐parent household influences the time children spend in home production, leisure, school, and paid work activities. A secondary data set containing time diary data for a sample of California children over age 5 was used. Results indicated that systematic differ ences do exist. Specifically, children living with two parents spend increasingly less time in home production activities as their family income rises. The home contributions of children of single parents were invariant to family income. Among both family types, girls spend more time in home production than do their male siblings. Single‐parent children spend more time in paid work activi ties. This employment, along with increased home responsibilities, means that single‐parent children enjoy less leisure time at an earlier age than their two‐ parent counterparts. Female children living with a single parent spend signifi cantly less time in school activities than either their male siblings or their two‐ parent counterparts.