Parental Education and Childcare Time in US, UK, Canada, Japan, and Korea from 1980s to 2020s

• In Event: 50261 - Family Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1: Childrearing & Parenthood

Abstract

Educational attainment, as an indicator of both socioeconomic resources and cultural ideology, plays a crucial role in shaping the gendered division of domestic labor. While childcare is often categorized alongside housework as unpaid domestic labor, it differs conceptually in that it involves both emotional investment and complex bargaining dynamics. Prior studies suggest that higher-educated parents spend more time on childcare, but empirical evidence is largely based on Western contexts. This study extends the literature by examining (a) the relationship between parental education levels and different types of childcare—total, physical, and developmental—in both Anglophone and East Asian countries, and (b) how this relationship has evolved over time from the 1980s to the 2020s, segmented into three periods. Using time-diary survey data from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and South Korea, we analyze regional differences and historical trends.

Our findings indicate that higher educational attainment is positively associated with total childcare time for both men and women, though regional and gender differences persist. Over time, men’s educational gradient in childcare has become more pronounced in all countries, while for women, this trend is only observed in East Asian nations. When distinguishing between physical and developmental childcare, educational gradients are more pronounced in physical childcare than in developmental childcare.

Authors

• Matthew Henglong Luo, University of Oxford

• Man-Yee Kan