From NEW YORK Reuters Health News
First-born children get nearly a half-hour more "quality time" every day with each parent than second-born children do, a new analysis of data on how Americans spend their time demonstrates.
The findings could help explain why oldest siblings tend to be higher achievers and less likely to engage in risky behaviors, according to Dr. Joseph Price, an assistant professor of economics at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and the study's author.
"Parents likely think they're being fair, because on any given day they're spending more time with their younger child," Price told Reuters Health. However, he added, parents are probably spending less time with the younger sibling than they did with the older child when he or she was the same age.
Price used data on thousands of households from the American Time Use Survey, matching first-born with second-born children of the same age from different families to compare how much time each parent spent with the child on a given day, and how the time was spent.
In two-child families, he found, the second children spent an average of 22 minutes less each day with their fathers, and 27 minutes less with their mothers, between the ages of 4 and 13. This translated to 37 percent more quality time with dads and 28 percent more quality time with moms for first-borns. Price found a similar pattern for 3- and 4-child families.
"These results provide a plausible explanation for recent research showing a very significant effect of birth order on child outcomes," he concludes in the report, published in The Journal of Human Resources. For example, Price noted in an interview, first-borns usually score higher on IQ tests, get more education, and are at lower risk of delinquency and teen pregnancy than their younger siblings.
"If you as a parent do care about fairness across your children, when given an opportunity you should try to put a little extra quality time toward your younger children," Price said. While many harried parents may think there's not enough time in the day to make this happen, the researcher pointed out that his analysis found most parent-child time is spent in front of the television. This averages 52 minutes a day, and doesn't count as quality time. "You might just take some of that TV time and allocate it toward reading a book, playing or talking," Price said.
There are other pockets of time that offer opportunities for interaction, he added, such as the 24 minutes a day families spend traveling. This time could be used talk, rather than listening to the radio or letting the kids watch a DVD. Parents actually do have an extra 24 minutes that could be used a quality time, Price said.
Using the same data set, Price is now planning to investigate the monetary value of quality time spent with children. While oldest kids get more time, he pointed out, younger siblings get more money, as their parents are likely better off than they were when the first child was born. Comparing time, money, and children's outcomes, Price added, "might actually allow us to figure out just how valuable parent time is."
SOURCE: The Journal of Human Resources, Winter 2008.
