Gender Disparities in Parenting Time Across Activities, Child Ages, and Educational Groups

Abstract

Although gender gaps in parenting time endure for parents of young children, and in physical and developmental care, men’s changing attitudes toward egalitarian gender roles suggest that gender disparities in parenting time may have closed in some contexts: particularly, in other shared activities with children, when children are school aged or older, and among higher educated parents. We investigate these possibilities using weekday time diary data from a nationally representative survey of parents participating in the American Time Use Survey (2003-2014; N = 28,698). In contrast to our expectations, we find that the gender gap in parents’ time with children persists when children are older, and even grow for some activities; extend to several other forms of shared parent–child time; and is often largest for higher educated parents. At the same time, there are notable contexts in which the gaps disappear, although they encompass the most pleasant activities, and least intensive stages of parenting.