Full Citation
Title: The Father and Child Inequality in Health and Cognition
Citation Type: Miscellaneous
Publication Year: 2023
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI:
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: The literature on child development traditionally emphasizes maternal time use, female labor supply, and their impact on child outcomes. This study uncovers two key findings: First, fathers exhibit significantly greater variation in time spent with their children compared to mothers. Second, there is a strong positive relationship between fathers' labor market participation and their involvement in childcare-a trend not observed among mothers. This suggests that the long-assumed trade-off between labor market participation and childcare does not apply to fathers in the same way it does to mothers. To quantify the impact of this paternal time investment heterogeneity on child development inequality, this study estimates production functions for cognitive and health development in children aged 1-18, using data from both fathers and mothers in the PSID time diary and child development supplement. The analysis, based on a nonlinear latent factor model with gender-specific labor demand shocks as instruments, reveals a striking result: Eliminating paternal time investment heterogeneity reduces the variance in child cognition by 22 percent and child health variance by an impressive 49 percent, particularly among children aged 12-18. These findings underscore the significant role of fathers in child development and contribute to the literature on intergenerational mobility by investigating factors based on parental actions, rather than parental identity, with a special emphasis on the heterogeneity of fathers' time allocation.
Url: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/yzhong/child_inequality.pdf
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Li, Jiaqi; Zhong, Yaolang
Publisher:
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Family and Marriage, Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Work, Family, and Time
Countries: