Today’s parents are spending?dramatically more time on childcare than their parents did.? What’s more, this rise has disproportionately occurred among those with the most education.? At least, that’s the conclusion of a provocative and important study that?Valerie and?Garey Ramey will present at next week’s?Brookings Panel on Economic Activity.
As new parents ourselves, juggling life with a?6 month old daughter (belated happy half-birthday, Matilda!), we’re particularly interested in how parents balance market work and time with their youngsters.?? How are parents today doing this differently than parents a decade ago?? Two decades ago?? To find out, we’re asking you.
If you’ve ever had a child, we want to know about your experience.? We’ve designed a little survey that should take less than five minutes to fill out (and is completely anonymous).? Your response will definitely be helpful in informing discussion of the Ramey and Ramey paper-after all, your data is likely more informative than our theorizing.? So, whether your kid is 6 months, 6 years, 16, or 60, please: Click through HERE, to take this brief survey.
Thanks!? And if you stay tuned, we’ll be back after the conference to discuss Ramey and Ramey’s intriguing findings, the comments of the discussants (Betsey, along with Wharton Ph.D. student?Dan Sacks, and the University of Chicago’s Erik Hurst), and just how your survey answers fit in with all of this.
and 
. You can also watch it on 
I couldn’t find the option for spouse didn’t take time off work because she is a stay at home mom. Did I just miss it?
The survey is a bit difficult to answer for some scenarios. Our son is 6 mos old and still breastfeeding which makes it difficult to answer questions such as “when did your latest child stop breastfeeding?”, etc.
Epic Fail: “How many weeks leave did your spouse/partner take before returning to work after the birth of your last child?”
Not one of the answers was “My spouse is a stay-at-home spouse.”
Let me add a survey question:
Have you stopped beating your spouse and kids?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
PS- How are you going to handle the effects of selection bias in this survey?
As an educator who talks with parents about this topic all the time, my sense is that one reason parents are spending a lot more time with their kids is the fear of leaving them alone. I know parents who pick their kids up from schools even though they live only four blocks away and parents who won’t let their kids out of their sight because they are afraid of something bad happening to them. Many kids nowadays spend almost their entire childhood under adult supervision and are rarely left to their own devices.
I grew up in the late 70′s/early 80′s in San Francisco, and not only did I start takling the bus (public transit, not the school bus) to school by myself starting when I was nine, but I was pretty much left to my own devices after school each day until my parents got home about 5:00-6:00.
So my impression is that parents coddle their kids a lot more out of fear in this day and age.
As a working mum of 4 young children, I took your survey but don’t think you have examined the right questions. I work because I need to. I want my children to go to nice schools, live in a nice area and have the best of everything but I don’t have them in a day care centre. I am fortunate to live near my parents that have taken on a co-caring role. You concentrate on the last child when you really need to ask about EVERY child because I went back to work after each child in varying capacity. I know many other working mum’s in similar situations. Some of us even have had the opportunity to work from home while our children are young. All mothers that I refer to are highly qualified (Bachelor Degree or above). Some have opted for a live in nanny or part time nanny, au pair, day care, grandparents, etc. There are so many options but I feel that your survey is assuming that if we are at work that our kids are in a daycare centre.
A further flaw is that the survey asks:
After returning to work following the birth of your last child, how many hours per week did your spouse/partner work?
My spouse/partner hasn’t returned to work since the birth of our last child
Less than 20 hours per week
20 to less than 30 hours per week
30 to less than 40 hours per week
40 hours per week
41 to 50 hours per week
50 or more hours per week
Why doesn’t this simply ask how many hours the spouse/partner currently works? Isn’t that the metric the study is actually driving for? How many hours are being spent on market work versus not?
As a divorcee, my spouse/partner isn’t the same one who returned to work following the birth of my last child.
Was this survey proofed, vetted, and approved? I really expected better here.
The survey does not ask whether you are currently working. I returned to work, found it intolerable and unfulfilling, then left to be a stay at home parent. There should be a way to capture this. I think it’s a fairly common outcome.
The survey asked for my race but didn’t ask the race of my wife, which is different than my own.