Beyond the clock: Rethinking the meaning of unpaid childcare in the U.S.

Abstract

Can parental childcare be described as productive work? If so, is this work reducible to the specific physical activities designated in most time use surveys, or does it include more diffuse responsibilities for supervision, socialization, and management? These questions invite attention to debates over the meaning of work itself, which have been shaped not only by gender and academic discipline, but also by empirical results of diary-based time use surveys. Recent quantitative research strongly suggests that neither the temporal demands, nor the economic contributions of parental childcare are fully captured by conventional measurement of specific childcare activities. The numbers themselves urge us to look beyond the clock to carefully consider how time use categories are conceptualized.

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