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 think I should not have filled that one out. I work from home, so I took no time off. My husband took over while I was in the hospital. My husband teaches and he had the whole summer off, so is the no time off or 2 months off before returning to work. My life does not fit into a check this box survey very well.
There’s a big difference between the amount of time I worked when I first went back to work and the amount of time I work now. And what about men (unlikely for women) who drastically reduce their schedules in the beginning and gradually ramp back up? I.e. they don’t really take a “leave” but that’s a lot different than not taking time off at all.
i don’t want to jump on to the bashing of the questionnaire, but it might be a good idea to ask what country the person is responding from. it’s very common for mothers outside of the u.s.a. to take more than 6 months off work, and they often take a year.
This survey does not take into account stay at home parents, or adopted kids ! Plus it looks like there are other stakeholders in this study considering the number of questions on breastfeeding vs formula. If you are truly interested in time spent on kids you would have included questions on division of household chores, time actually spent with kids vs time being spent working from home, day care time, other caregivers, how weekend hours are spent etc etc..
Please redesign your survey. It does not reflect what you are professing to be measuring.
Quite useless!
My parents never spent money on child care because my mom stayed at home.
But more people in my generation are choosing to work–so maybe that’s why we spend more.
Stay-at-home moms really need to be recognized, because they are a big part of this issue.
justin, we had twins. this makes the hours of breastfeeding question misleading.
The increased time on childcare isn’t necessarily talking place when the kids are infants. I was babysitting my siblings when I was 10 or so. I began babysitting for other families in seventh or eighth grade.
Babysitting often involved feeding kids, putting them through the bath-brushing-pajama routine, then checking while they slept. Now sitters who train at Red Cross are told not to feed or bathe kids because of liability issues. Plus, a lot of well-educated parents will look down on parents who leave young children in charge of younger children.
Some states don’t like children under 12 or 13 to be at home alone, much less supervising other kids. I think well-educated parents are more likely to be aware of the laws (teachers and social workers, for instance, probably know “the rules” have changed). Less well informed parents simply may do for their kids what was done for them, and send the kids out to play or pay a young neighbor to watch them. And some parents who don’t have much money simply can’t afford after-school care, but the kids are expected to stay home alone to hide the fact they’re not supervised.
In my opinion, the nanny state has made parents more afraid to let kids be independent because the parents will be blamed if something happens to the child. At the same time, kids aren’t learning basic skills like cooking, woodworking, car repair, sewing and so on in middle school so they can be more independent.
A very poorly designed quiz because it contains all sorts of built-in assumptions. You could use a serious review by someone outside your apparently limited academic social circle.
Your stated purpose is “How are parents today doing this differently than parents a decade ago? Two decades ago? To find out, we’re asking you.”, yet you fail to ask the most obvious questions related to how many parents are full-time stay-at-home before giving birth.
I don’t see how this quiz can result in any meaningful information related to your stated purpose. It’s just too flawed…