Do Teachers Who Are Parents Spend More or Less Time on Childcare Than Non-Teacher Parents?

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: The Personal Is Professional: How Teachers Navigate the Demands of Family and Work (Table 2)

Abstract

Building upon knowledge that both paid and unpaid forms of care work are female-dominated, I examine the relationship between occupation and childcare time among parents, comparing the at-home time use of preK-12 teachers to non-teachers. Teachers constitute a major portion of the care economy; their daily responsibilities involve substantial interaction with children and reliance on mental and emotional labor. Using logistic and linear regressions with data from the American Time Use Survey (2003-2022), I find that parents who are teachers spend about 10 minutes more on household childcare per day—on average—compared to non-teacher parents. This finding further informs our understanding of work-family balance in the lives of teachers and contributes to narratives of teacher stress and burnout.

Author

• Macy Brammer, Brown University