Full Citation
Title: The Impact of Job Loss on Parental Time Investment
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2023
ISBN:
ISSN: 01479121
DOI: 10.1108/S0147-912120230000051005/FULL/XML
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Abstract: Parental job loss has been shown to have a negative impact on a large number of children’s outcomes, in particular for low-income children. Given the amount of time freed up by loss of employment and the fact that active time with one’s children appears to be a productive input in their human capital production function, increases in the time parents spend with their children have the potential to positively impact a child or to counteract other negative consequences of parental job loss. This chapter studies how low-and higher-income parents change their time investment in their children when faced with job loss. Using national time-diary data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) linked to longitudinal labor market data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), I find that parents spend almost 15% of the time freed up by job loss – roughly 3.5 additional hours per week – actively with their children. Low-income parents invest their freed-up time no differently from higher-income parents. While mothers who lose their job respond by spending more time actively with their children, this adjustment is much smaller for fathers. This suggests that differential adjustments in time investment may play a role in the impact maternal versus paternal job loss has on children’s outcomes.
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Gruber, Anja
Periodical (Full): Research in Labor Economics
Issue:
Volume: 51
Pages: 105-134
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS, IPUMS Time Use - ATUS
Topics: Race and Ethnicity, Work, Family, and Time
Countries: