Childcare, Device Use, and Parental Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The problem:

COVID-19 reshaped family life as the pandemic brought on a time of social upheaval both inside and outside the household. For parents, the home was where they spent most of their time as they juggled work, housework, and childcare–all while spending more time on devices. In the spring of 2020 through much of 2021, childcare, school, and work moved from institutional settings to family homes and became mediated by devices like phones and computers. Past research suggests device use during childcare is associated with lower parental wellbeing (McDaniel and Coyne, 2016).

The approach:

Using random effects models and time diary data from the National Couples Health and Time Study (NCHAT), the researchers aimed to understand how time spent in different types of childcare was associated with parental stress, happiness, and engagement and how this was shaped by concurrent device use. The team further explored variation by gender and child age as women do more childcare, particularly routine childcare and report higher stress during these activities compared to men (Musick et al. 2016). Moreover, parents tend to spend more time in childcare when children are young (Meier et al. 2018).

The findings:

The researchers found that stress in childcare was higher for mothers than fathers and for those engaged in care for younger versus older children. These results indicate that parents spent over three hours of childcare time each day, or approximately 44% their daily childcare time, while on a device. Parents were more stressed and less happy when using a device during childcare, regardless of gender of parent, age of youngest child, or childcare activity type.

The association between device use during childcare and engagement depended on the age of the youngest child, such that parents of young children (up to 9 years old) were less engaged in childcare activities when they were also on their device. Parents who were caring for young children while on a device reported significantly lower engagement than those not on a device while there was no such difference by device use when caring for older children.

The researchers’ next steps are to dig into gender differences (or lack thereof ) in parental well-being by time in childcare, type of childcare, device use, and location of activities (public versus within the household). Further, the researchers aim to measure duration/spells of childcare to better understand when in the duration of childcare these measures are being captured as they suspect there could be significant differences based on timing (beginning versus end of childcare session).

Selected Publications & Presentations

Bates, A. J., Kamp Dush, C. M., & Manning, W. D. (2024). State-Level LGBTQ + Policies and Experiences of Interpersonal Discrimination among Sexual and Gender Minority People. Population Research and Policy Review, 43(5), 68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-024-09907-1

Meier, A., Kamp Dush, C., VanBergen, A. M., Clark, S., & Manning, W. (2024). Marginalized identities, healthcare discrimination, and parental stress about COVID‐19. Journal of Marriage and Family, jomf.13023. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.13023