John F. Sandberg

Changes in children’s time with parents: United States, 1981–1997

In this paper we examine changes in the time American children spent with their parents between 1981 and 1997, and the contribution to these changes made by shifting patterns of female labor force participation, family structure, and parental education. We decompose changes into the parts attributable to changes in demographic characteristics and the parts probably due to changes in behavior. In general, children’s time with parents did not decrease over the period; in two-parent families it increased substantially. Population-level changes in demographic characteristics exerted only small direct effects on the time children spent with parents.

Changes in American children's time, 1981–1997

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine changes between 1981 and 1997 in how a representative sample of American children spends their time on a weekly basis, focusing on overall differences in time use. We also examine how the time of specific children varies depending on the age and gender of the child, presence of and employment status of parents, the number of children in the family, and the level of parental education. Data come from the Time Use Longitudinal Panel Study, 1975–1981 and the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Results show a pattern of increased time in structured activities such as school, day care, sports, and art activities, and reduced time in unstructured play, television viewing, visiting, and passive leisure. While a few of these changes are related to increased maternal employment, most tend to be related to demographic characteristics such as increased education and reduced family size.

Changes in Children's Time With Parents: A Correction

This article provides corrected estimates of the weekly time that 3- to 12-year-old children spent either directly engaged with their parents or with their parents accessible to them in 1997, replicating the figures presented in the original 2001 Demography article. The data come from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results show a considerably greater increase in children’s total time in 1997 with mothers, fathers, or either parent than was shown in the original article. Some alternative estimates, likely reasons for the larger change, and the implications are discussed.

THE INFLUENCE OF NETWORK MORTALITY EXPERIENCE ON NONNUMERIC RESPONSE CONCERNING EXPECTED FAMILY SIZE: EVIDENCE FROM A NEPALESE MOUNTAIN VILLAGE*

This article investigates the effects of sociometric network members’ self-reported experiences with infant mortality on nonnumeric responses regarding expected family size among women in a small Nepalese community. The hypotheses tested include (1) that uncertainty about child survival, measured as average infant mortality across social networks, increases the likelihood of a non numeric response and (2) that this effect will be stronger when there is less variance in infant mortality experience within women’s networks. The results suggest that nonnumeric response may be related to uncertainty about mortality derived through social learning.

Social learning about levels of perinatal and infant mortality in Niakhar, Senegal

Abstract How individuals develop perceptions concerning the risk of infant and child mortality has important consequences for fertility and demographic transition theory and for understanding broader processes of social learning. The role of learning through social interaction in shaping demographic phenomena has been the subject of intense research in the last decade. Much previous research however has been hampered by inadequate measures of individuals’ personal networks, the proximal context in which learning takes place. Using pilot data employing an innovative social network design in conjunction with demographic surveillance data from Niakhar, Senegal, this research models perception of change in the level of infant mortality over time as a function of the experience of social network associates with perinatal and infant mortality. Results suggest relatively strong effects of network members’ mortality experience controlling for own experiences of child mortality as well as neighborhood and community levels of infant mortality among other controls.

Family Size, Cognitive Outcomes, and Familial Interaction in Stable, Two-Parent Families: United States, 1997–2002

Measures of children’s time use, particularly with parents and siblings, are used to evaluate three hypotheses in relation to the vocabulary and mathematical skills development: (1) the resource dilution hypothesis, which argues that parental and household resources are diluted in larger families; (2) the confluence hypothesis, which suggests that the intellectual milieu of families is lowered with additional children; and (3) the admixture (“no effect”) hypothesis, which suggests that the negative relationship between family size and achievement is an artifact of cross-sectional research resulting from unobserved heterogeneity. Each hypothesis is tested using within-child estimates of change in cognitive scores over time with the addition of new children to families.