| Description |
The aim of this study was to examine one of the underlying processes that may influence some of the negative child outcomes found to occur after divorce. The underlying process examined was how a child spends his/her time. More specifically, do children in divorced families spend their time differently than children who come from two-parent, or never married households? The data for this study was taken from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), a nationally representative, ongoing longitudinal survey of U.S. men, women, children, and the families in which they reside, and the 1997 Child Development Supplement (CDS) to the PSID. A final sample of 923 children, who come from single-parent, female headed households, was used in the data analysis. This study used a multivariate tobit analysis, and controls for numerous independent variables beyond the parents' marital status, such as: child's age, child's sex, mother's employment, mother's education level, and poverty. Findings indicated that children from divorced, female-headed households, appeared to spend their time slightly differently (such as more time in market work), however, the time use differences are not as significant as first hypothesized. An unexpected and interesting finding was, that coming from a never married, female-headed household, had just as much, if not more, influence on the children's time use, than coming from a divorced household. Besides the findings considering marital status variables, this study offered some other important findings. As hypothesized, there were age and gender differences between how children from single-parent, female headed households, spend their time. Mother's education level did influence how children spend their time, such as 11 watching less TV. Another surprising result was, that poverty also did not have as great of an influence on children's time use as previously hypothesized. |
