Pressed for time: How much time do Russians spend caring for their children?

The article forms the idea of the structure of daily time budget of families with children, analyses the gender specifics and nature of parental involvement in families with different number of children on weekdays and weekends. The empirical basis for the analysis was microdata from the Sample Observation of the Use of Daily Time Fund by the Population, conducted by the RF Federal State Statistics Service in 2019, that covered about seven thousand respondents who met the research objectives. The main components of the time budgets of family members depending on its size were identified. The number of children in the family has a stronger impact on the time budgets of mothers compared to fathers — up to full (8+ hours) household employment of mothers in large families. The authors note that fathers devote about 40 minutes to caring for their children on weekdays, while mothers spend 3.8 times more. There is recorded an increase in fathers’ involvement in childcare as the family grows. A characteristic jump in the time spent on childcare during the transition from a one-child to a two-child family was revealed, with a subsequent smooth and smaller increase in families with 3 or more children. A possible explanation may be involvement of older children in babysitting and playing with younger children, which increases as the family grows. It is concluded that there is a greater unity in the intra-family activities of all members in large families. The authors point to a great potential for using research on the daily time fund in further studying the lifestyles of families with different number of children.

time budget research, family, involved parenting, determinants of fatherhood and motherhood, childcare, housework