The effects of time use and time pressure on child-parent relationships: Research report

The effects of time use and time pressure on child-parent relationships: Research report
28 fact sheets
405 KB, 34 pages in PDF format

Submitted to: Health Canada
By: Jiri Zuzanek, University of Waterloo
Research Assistant: Lisa Wenger, University of Waterloo

October 2000

Acknowledgements

Executive Summary

Fact Sheets:

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Childhood and Youth Division at Health Canada for funding this research.

Fact Sheets Formatted by Lisa Wenger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

All correspondence should be addressed to:
Dr. J. Zuzanek, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies
University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, N2L 3G1
e-mail address: zuzanek@healthy.uwaterloo.ca

Executive Summary

The objectives of this research project were to contribute to a better understanding of the time use dimension of the parent-child relations in the context of current social trends, as these affect Canada and other highly industrialised countries. A majority of the data for the analyses presented in this study were taken from Canadian national time use surveys conducted between 1981 and 1998, in particular the General Social Survey (GSS) administered by Statistics Canada in 1998-1999 (n=10,749).

Several major questions are addressed in the report:

How have the changes in the labour market, the family structure, and the overall pace of life affected the lives of Canadians at the behavioural and emotional levels over the past twenty years?
How did the changing conditions in the labour market and the workplace affect parent-child relationships and, in particular, the allocation of parental time to child care?
How are parent-child relationships influenced by the families' division of labour and parents' demographic and social economic circumstances?
How are parent-child relationships impacted upon by new arrangements in the workplace, such as part-time work, flex-time, tele-commuting, and shift-work?
How have the social and economic changes of the past twenty years behaviourally and emotionally affected the lives of Canadian adolescents?
How does the Canadian situation compare with that in other countries? and, finally,
What are some of the social and policy implications of the observed trends?

Some of the following findings are presented and discussed in the report:

Canadians' paid workloads changed little over the 1986 to 1998 period, but their unpaid workload has increased over this period by over 25%.
The combined loads of paid and unpaid work of employed Canadian parents have increased during the 1981 to 1998 period by 18%.
Levels of perceived time pressure or "time crunch" have increased between 1992 and 1998 for the entire Canadian population, but have increased more so for parents than non parents.
During the period from 1986 to 1998 the "gender gap" between men's and women's combined loads of paid and unpaid work has narrowed, but women continue to carry a larger portion of domestic work and child care, and report considerably higher levels of time pressure than men.
Employed Canadian parents with children under the age of 18 have raised their contribution to child care during the period from 1986 to 1998 by over 50%.
Additional time spent in child care has been provided primarily at the expense of personal needs and sleep. The amount of time adults and adolescents spend eating at home has steadily declined over the 1981 to 1998 period.
Gains in child care time were "asymmetrically" distributed across children of different ages. Parent-child contact time with children under the age of 5 has risen by 13% between 1986 and 1998, but dropped by more than 50% for parents with teenagers (12-18 years).
The amount of parental child care is strongly dependent on children's age. Physical child care declines significantly after children reach the age of 6. Social and emotional contacts drop dramatically when children become teenagers. Parents with children in the 12 to 18 age group report only 11 minutes of total child care time and 2 minutes in socialising and monitoring children.
The percentages of employed parents "very satisfied" with their lives and feeling "very happy" have declined between 1986 and 1998 by over 18%, compared to a decline of approximately 11% for the entire surveyed population. The declines were stronger for parents with teenage children than for parents of pre-schoolers.
In spite of higher overall workloads, university graduate parents spend more time in direct child care and in the presence of children than parents with lower education.
Single mothers' compressed time schedules, greater dependence on the job, and constrained financial resources contribute to a heightened sense of time pressure among this group.
A lower percentage of adolescents from lone-parent families report feeling "very happy".
Mothers working part-time report lower levels of perceived time pressure and feel more satisfied with their work-family balance than mothers working full-time, and feel happier than mothers working full-time or mothers staying at home.
Fathers and mothers working long hours spend the same or a greater amount of time with their children than do parents working regular hours, but report a higher sense of time pressure and perceived stress, and lower levels of satisfaction with their balance of work-family life and life in general.
Flex-time does not necessarily mean less work, but it appears to make the work and the life after work hours more satisfying.
Tele-commuting is better suited to the needs of women than men. Women working out of home report longer hours of paid work, but less time pressure, more time for child care, and are more satisfied with the work-family balance than women tied to the workplace.
Night shifts for men and women come at an emotional cost. They are associated with high levels of time pressure, low satisfaction with work-family balance, and less sleep.
The evening shifts are almost as trying as night shifts for mothers. Women working evening shifts report fewer hours of paid work than women working regular day shifts, but put longer hours into domestic work and child care, and record extremely high levels of time pressure.
Canadian adolescents aged 15 to 19 spent somewhat less time in school related activities and reported having more free time in 1998 than in 1986.
Social leisure and watching television are the two dominant leisure activities among Canadian adolescents. The share of social leisure as part of adolescents' free time has increased significantly between 1986 and 1998, while watching television appears to have peaked in the 1980s and changed little since then.
The level of physically active leisure and outdoor participation reported by adolescents rose significantly between 1986 and 1998.
Girls are more confident of their parents' trust than boys, but are more concerned about being misunderstood and are more likely to feel that too much is expected of them. As well, girls have more pronounced negative emotional experiences (self-esteem, life satisfaction) than those reported by boys and even adult employed women.
There is evidence of early socialisation of adolescents into a gendered division of work and family obligations. Teenage girls living at home spend double the boys' time helping parents with domestic work, but half the boys' amount in paid work.

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