Children's Work in the Family: Its Significance and Meaning

Abstract

Using data from a random sample of 790 Nebraska parents, this paper reports on extent of children's involvement in the household division of labor and the meaning of this work for the family. These data indicate that children's chores are an ubiquitous feature of family life. Based on parental report, four rationales for these chores are discussed: developmental, reciprocal obligation, extrinsic, and task learning. The relationships between these meanings of work and structural and family characteristics are explored. It is suggested that these meanings form a family theme, providing insight into values surrounding the parent-child bond and the duties that parents and children owe one another.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 143 citations exist upstream.