Household Composition and Gender Differences in Parental Time Investments

Abstract

Recent research has documented the relatively poor performance of boys, especially those from single-mother households, on a number of outcomes. Differences in non-cognitive skills are often cited as a main contributing factor. However, we still know little about the underlying mechanisms driving differences in non-cognitive skills and other outcomes. This paper provides empirical evidence that parental time investments, defined as the amount of time parents spend participating in activities with their child, change differentially by child gender following a transition from a two-parent to single-mother household. Boys experience larger investment reductions following the change in household structure, which may help facilitate previously documented gender gaps in non-cognitive skills for those in single-mother households. Boys lose an estimated additional 3.8 hours per week in fathers' time investments, nearly 30 percent of average weekly paternal investments across the sample. The differential is increasing with age, concentrated in leisure and entertainment activities, and there is little to no evidence that single mothers compensate for the loss by increasing investments to boys, relative to girls.