Child Welfare

March 5, 2025

Increases in Community Income Improve Birth Outcomes

A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Molly A. Martin, PhD, Department of Sociology and Criminology, The Pennsylvania State University

Birth outcomes are strongly linked to income but proving a direct cause-and-effect relationship has been challenging. Our new study, published in Demography, uses the economic boom from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale natural gas development as a “natural experiment” to examine how community-level income gains affect pregnancy behaviors and birth outcomes.

In our research examining birth outcomes before and after the Marcellus Shale boom (2007-2012), we found that a $1,000 increase in average community income led to a 1.5 percentage point decrease in low birthweight births and a 1.8 percentage point increase in expectant parents receiving adequate prenatal care. These benefits accrued across the study site and were also significant in high-poverty areas, suggesting economic development may help reduce adverse birth outcomes among high-risk, disadvantaged communities.

Our study analyzed over 78,000 births in Pennsylvania school districts above the Marcellus Shale geological formation, comparing births in areas that industry experts predicted – before the first well was drilled – to be the best for natural gas extraction with births in areas predicted to be less productive. This geological data allowed us to predict where the economic boom would be greater based on the characteristics of the underlying rock formed 39 million years ago – long before residents made choices about their health behaviors, health care and family goals.

We focus on the economic impacts of natural gas development in Pennsylvania because they were large: gains of over $14 billion between 2008 and 2010 in corporate spending, job growth, and local tax revenue. These gains were important because Pennsylvania was still recovering from the Great Recession. Yet the environmental hazards of Marcellus Shale development, like water contamination, air pollution, and forest disruption, are also important. More research is needed to examine the environmental and health risks of hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas industry practices.

We used the geological variation of the shale to identify cause-and-effect relationships. With a pre-drilling map of the Marcellus Shale geological formation created by the oil and gas industry, we classified school districts into “treatment” and “comparison” groups based on the predicted economic value of the shale for gas production.

Among the 282 Pennsylvania school districts above the Marcellus Shale, 184 are in the treatment group and 98 are in the comparison group. Relative to the comparison districts, community income in the treatment districts increased by $1,825 per household per year. New York treatment districts did not experience these community income gains because “fracking” is banned there.

We made our causal estimates more accurate with additional steps. First, we accounted for a host of other differences between the treatment and comparison groups and changes that both groups experienced over time. Finally, we examined siblings born before and after the economic boom to control for family characteristics, like the parent’s genetic predispositions, childhood experiences, personality traits and preferences. Together, these approaches allowed us to isolate the effects of community income gains on birth outcomes.

Our findings show that community-wide income gains can improve infant birth outcomes even in the presence of potential environmental risks from natural gas development. Our research design controlled for area-wide hazardous exposures, which prior research demonstrates are harmful for infant health. Notably, we did not find greater water pollution, air pollution, or other environmental hazards in treatment districts relative to comparison districts.

This means our quasi-experimental groups based on pre-drilling information really captured potential income, not drilling itself or its repercussions. Treatment districts did receive more income, but they were just as likely as comparison districts to experience the environmental hazards associated with drilling and gas production. By design, our study was able to isolate the effect of community income gains.

Our study provides strong causal evidence that raising community-level income can lead to reduced rates of low birthweight births. This is notable because low birthweight is an important early life indicator that strongly predicts infant mortality, inhibited cognitive development, and numerous physical health challenges and diseases. In fact, low birthweight and its subsequent childhood risks have long-term consequences like lowered educational attainment, lower lifetime earnings, and shorter lifespans, which has led some scholars to speculate that low birth weight is a key mechanism in the transmission of poverty across generations.

We found that income appears to affect birth outcomes through multiple pathways beyond maternal health behaviors like smoking, gestational weight gain, and prenatal care use. Thus, our work suggests that economic development and other policies that increase community income could reduce the incidence of low birth weight and, thereby, improve population health beyond infancy.

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For More Information, Please Contact:

Molly A. Martin, PhD
Department of Sociology and Criminology
The Pennsylvania State University
mam68@psu.edu

Citation: Martin, M. A., Green, T. L., & Chapman, A. (2024). The Causal Effect of Increasing Area-Level Income on Birth Outcomes and Pregnancy-Related Health: Estimates from the Marcellus Shale Boom Economy. Demography 11691517. https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-11691517

Link: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2025/03/05/community-income-brief-report/

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About CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families, based at the University of Texas-Austin, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of family researchers and practitioners that seeks to further a national understanding of how America’s families are changing and what is known about the strengths and weaknesses of different family forms and various family interventions.

The Council helps keep journalists informed of new and forthcoming research on gender and family-related issues via the CCF Network. To locate researchers or request copies of previous research briefs, please contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com, cell 360-556-9223.

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

February 25, 2025

Why the U.S. Should Have (and Why Men Should Take) Paternity Leave

A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Richard J. Petts, Professor, Department of Sociology, Ball State University, together with Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan and Reed Donithen, Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University

February 25, 2025

Amidst all the talk of increased political polarization and divisiveness within the United States, it can be easy to lose sight of the ways in which Americans are united. Yet, U.S. adults overwhelmingly believe that spending time with family is very important, with 89% of democrats and 92% of republicans supporting this belief. Americans also appear to be reaching consensus on one key policy that can promote family time: paid parental leave. The vast majority of Americans favor paid parental leave policies, even across political lines and within contentious “battleground” states. This support corresponds to growth in access to paid family leave policies. In the past 5 years, five states have adopted paid family and medical leave policies – bringing the U.S. total to 13 states (plus Washington, DC) with these policies in place. Although this progress pales in comparison to the more robust paid parental leave policies in European and other countries, it demonstrates the growing awareness of the need for paid leave policies for families.

Scholars and policymakers have learned a lot about what makes a good parental leave policy. In particular, paid parental leave policies should provide an adequate period of time off work (at least 18 weeks), should be well-paid, should provide job protection, and should be available to fathers. In many ways, U.S. state paid family leave policies are “good” policies as they are often well-paid (particularly for low-income workers), provide job protection, and are equally available to mothers and fathers (although they do not adhere to International Labour Organization guidelines recommending 18 weeks of leave).

However, the reliance on state- and company-level policies in the U.S. (as opposed to federal policies) results in just over ¼ of American workers having access to paid parental leave. Furthermore, while Americans are generally supportive of paid parental leave policies, there are clear concerns that taking parental leave is harmful for one’s career even if one’s job is protected. Whereas taking leave is seen as necessary for mothers to recover physically and emotionally from childbirth, some remain skeptical about paternity leave – viewing this leave as unnecessary and believing that fathers instead should focus on work.

The view that parental leave should primarily be used by mothers and that fathers instead should prioritize work fuels gender inequality in both paid work and home life. As fatherhood scholars, we have engaged in extensive research demonstrating the general benefits of father involvement in childcare and domestic work, as well as the specific benefits of paternity leave for families.

Paternity Leave Promotes Father Involvement

Fathers cite lack of time as a primary barrier preventing them from being as involved in their children’s lives as they desire. The first benefit of paternity leave is providing fathers with dedicated time to bond with their new child and to learn how to care for their child, which sets them up to be more involved with their children in the long term. Indeed, U.S. fathers who take longer paternity leave remain more involved fathers throughout the first few years of their child’s life. In addition, when fathers take at least two weeks of paternity leave, children later report that their fathers are more involved in their lives, they feel closer to their fathers, and they communicate better with their fathers compared to children whose fathers did not take leave. In short, paternity leave sets the stage for fathers to be highly involved throughout their child’s life, which benefits children, families, and fathers themselves.

Paternity Leave Promotes Stronger Relationships between Parents

In addition to providing time for fathers to bond with their child and gain parenting confidence, paternity leave also provides dedicated time for parents to figure out how to parent together. This increases the likelihood that parents can support one another and reduces the likelihood that one parent (often the mother) becomes the ‘parenting expert’ and shoulders the burden of parenting. In fact, a new study shows that mothers are less likely to discourage fathers from participating in childcare when fathers take longer paternity leave, which allows fathers to more effectively act as parents on their own terms. Other studies further show that paternity leave-taking can help to strengthen parental relationships. For example, mothers report higher relationship satisfaction and greater parenting support from fathers for years following the birth of a child when fathers take longer paternity leave. Paternity leave is even linked to a lower likelihood of divorce.

How Can We Promote Greater Access To, and Use of, Paternity Leave?

The evidence is clear that paternity leave is good for families, and it has the potential to benefit American society by promoting more egalitarian parenting arrangements and greater gender equality in the paid labor force. But to fully realize these benefits, access to paid paternity leave needs to increase. Recent policy developments in Europe show that when paid parental leave policies are expanded and targeted toward fathers, fathers are much more likely to use these policies. However, policy reform alone is not enough to change deep-seated cultural beliefs about gender, work, and family. We also need to become more accepting and supportive of men taking longer periods of leave, as fathers are more likely to use the parental leave they are entitled to if they believe their workplaces are supportive and do not fear negative consequences as a result of leave-taking. Public support for paid parental leave is building, and the benefits for all workers – including fathers – to have access to, and take, paid parental leave is clear. Evidence suggests the time is now! In fact, one recent national survey found that U.S. adults believe employed fathers should receive 10.5 weeks of paid parental leave (and mothers should receive 16 weeks) – over twice as much as was reported in 2017. It is time for policies and workplace culture to catch up to the cultural wave of support for paid parental leave in the U.S.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the staff at CCF for their assistance with the production of this article and Stephanie Coontz for her helpful comments in drafting this brief.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Richard J. Petts
Associate Dean of the College of Sciences and Humanities and Professor, Department of Sociology
Ball State University
rjpetts@bsu.edu

ABOUT CCF

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

November 14, 2023

Dads Home with Kids Peaked During The COVID-19 Pandemic – But Not for The Reason You Think

A briefing paper prepared by Arielle Kuperberg, University of North Carolina – Greensboro, Sarah Thébaud, University of California, Santa Barbara, Kathleen Gerson, New York University, and Brad Harrington, Boston College, for the Council on Contemporary Families symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality (PDF).

More dads were out of the labor force during the COVID-19 pandemic than ever before. In 2021, 15% of U.S. dads who lived with their children weren’t working, and weren’t actively searching for work – an all-time high (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Growth in Dads at Home, 1968-2022. Analysis of Current Population Survey Data, Yearly March Supplement, conducted using the ipums.org online data analyzer. Analysis includes all men living with their own children under age 18 at time of survey, and is nationally representative of the United States. Update and expansion of results previously published. Data analyzed by authors for Council on Contemporary Families.

But according to them, it wasn’t because they were taking care of the kids. Only one-percent of dads who lived with their children in 2021 and 2022 (fewer than 1 of 10 dads out of the labor force) said they were not looking for a job because they were taking care of home and family. Instead, almost all of the recent growth in dads out of the workforce has been the result of an increase in those who report that they are “retired.” In 2000, 4.4% of dads living with their minor children were retired; by 2022, this had risen to 7.4%, accounting for about half of dads living with their children who were out of the labor force.

The rise in retirement rates was a result of two trends. One is that fewer young men are having children. Recent PEW reports found that 63% of young men are single, and that birth rates have dropped to record lows. Our analysis of the Current Population Survey – March Supplement, a nationally representative annual survey of U.S. adults, found that in 2000, 44% of men in their 30s were not living with any of their own minor children – but by 2022 this number was almost 55%. We found rates of fatherhood are staying steady for men in their 40s and slightly growing among men in their 50s and 60s, so a larger share of dads are older.

Second, our analysis of the data found a growing share of even younger dads in their 50s, 40s, and even 30s say they are retired. During the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, more dads retired than usual, as health risks, lack of child care, and labor market upheavals drove many workers out of the paid workforce. Taken together, the increase in fathers out of the paid labor force are more a result of trends in fathers’ aging and retirement than changing ideas about gender, work and parenthood.

Figure 2: Fathers and Mothers Living with their own Children under Age 18, 2021. Authors’ Analysis of Current Population Survey – March Supplement Data.

But why aren’t more dads stepping up to stay home to care for home and family? After all, in an increasing number of families, including an increasing number of two-parent married families, mothers are the sole or “primary earners” (earning over 60% of the household income) for at least part of their children’s childhood. But while rates of moms staying home with kids have declined over time, we found that even when the proportion of dads out of the labor force reached peak rates in 2021, mothers living with their children were over ten times as likely as fathers living with their children to report they were home to take care of home and children(see Figure 2).

Our collective research suggests that culturally entrenched ideas about masculinity, fatherhood, and breadwinning still shape gender differences in staying home to care for children. Although men value care, and society increasingly values fathers as caregivers, dads are still most strongly judged on their roles as workers and financial providers, limiting their ability to comfortably take on caring roles.

In research-in-progress on trait desirability for American men and women, Thébaud & colleagues find that, in one sense, people’s perspectives on masculinity do appear to beevolving: most people believe it is highly socially desirable for men, especially fathers, to be caring, supportive, family-oriented, kind, and affectionate. In fact, these traits were perceived to be just as desirable in men as other, more stereotypically masculine, attributes like competitiveness and risk-taking. However, they also found that this apparent desirability for men to be engaged in caregiving is overshadowed by an extremely strong and durable expectation that men prioritize work: being hardworking, ambitious, career-oriented, and a provider were rated as the most highly desirable attributes in men.

Additional research by Harrington, Thébaud and colleagues further illustrates this duality in fatherhood expectations. In a study of more than a thousand working parents in professional occupations, more than three quarters would ideally prefer to share caregiving responsibilities equally with their spouse. But fewer than half were actually able to achieve that ideal in their day to day lives. Why? Workplace culture and expectations – especially the often taken-for-granted notion that the best workers are those who prioritize work over outside responsibilities – are one important culprit. That is, even when fathers would ideally like to share caregiving equally with their spouse, and even when they work in organizations that offer generous policies and benefits, the presence of intense work demands and expectations in their workplace can dramatically reduce their chances of achieving that ideal.

Restrictive ideas about masculinity, gender and work also shape young people’s outlooks. In another study by Gerson, 120 millennials were interviewed about how they envisioned their work and family ties. She found that most men and women aspired to share paid work and caregiving in an egalitarian partnership, yet they were skeptical about the chances of achieving this goal. Men felt constrained by the need to put work first, which meant they looked to a partner to do most of the caregiving. Yet women did not share this view. They wished to avoid a “traditional” relationship that expected them to do most of childcare, even if that meant remaining single and either forgoing childbearing or bearing and supporting a child on their own. Such perspectives may explain recent declines in childbearing.

The enduring expectation that fathers should prioritize work is apparent in how stay-at-home dads are viewed and treated. Research by Kuperberg and colleagues examining news articles about stay-at-home dads over 30 years indicates that while stigma surrounding stay-at-home dads has declined over time, dads who voluntarily choose to stay home with their kids are still described as being ridiculed, excluded, and socially isolated, receiving “strange looks” and “snide comments.” This persistent stigma may explain why out-of-work dads in their 30s, 40s, and 50s increasingly describe themselves as “retired,” but not “taking care of home and family.”

This kind of social environment – in which father’s caregiving is highly valued, but their employment and career devotion remains virtually non-negotiable – severely limits the range of options that parents face when it comes to figuring out how to best organize work and family responsibilities.

To achieve gender equality in work and family roles, it seems clear that we need greater attention to fathers, fatherhood, and ideas about masculinity and work. The pandemic pushed more fathers to “retire” before their children were adults, and potentially take on more caretaking roles at home. Other research in this symposium also finds that remote work led to greater equality in home roles. As more dads gained experience with caretaking roles during the pandemic, and economic forces continue to shift, families may continue to rely on dads for childcare at higher rates, creating new possibilities for families.

About the Authors

Arielle Kuperberg is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro and Chair of the Council on Contemporary Families. She can be reached at atkuperb@uncg.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @ATKuperberg.

Sarah Thébaud is Professor of Sociology and Director of Graduate Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She can be reached at sthebaud@ucsb.edu. Twitter: @sthebaud1.

Kathleen Gerson is Professor of Sociology and Collegiate Professor of Arts & Science at New York University. She can be reached at kathleen.gerson@nyu.edu. You can follow her on Twitter at @KathleenGerson.

Brad Harrington is a Research Professor and Executive Director of the Boston College Center for Work & Family. He can be reached at brad.harrington@bc.edu. You can follow him on Twitter @DrBradH.

November 14, 2023

Childcare Challenges During the Pandemic and Their Impact on Parents and Care Providers

A briefing paper prepared by Liana Christin Landivar, Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, and Pilar Gonalons-Pons, University of Pennsylvania for the Council on Contemporary Families online symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality (PDF).

*Views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the U.S. Department of Labor.

In March 2020, as part of states’ initial pandemic response, most childcare centers and virtually all schools closed to in-person operations, impacting a large share of the country’s children and their caregivers. About one-third of childcare centers remained closed a year later. Additionally, over 60 percent of elementary students attended public school districts that only offered fully or partially remote instruction in the Fall of 2020 with reduced in-person operations continuing for up to a year and a half in parts of the country. Unlike other high-income countries, the weak support for care infrastructure in the U.S. left parents and essential care providers in childcare centers and homes, preschools, and schools unprepared to address the multifaceted challenges posed by the pandemic. This resulted in significant consequences for both parents and providers, and ultimately, for social inequality.

How the lack of care infrastructure impacted parents

Employment swiftly declined among mothers in the first year of the pandemic. Mothers were more likely to leave their jobs and delay re-employment than fathers because they picked up significant and prolonged increases in carework at home, lacking alternative care arrangements for their children. As schools and childcare centers closed, care from friends and family also became more limited because of pandemic-related risks. Employment reductions were particularly large among mothers working in low-wage jobs without workplace flexibilities such as paid leave or telework that could have helped accommodate work and care obligations at home.

The pandemic left a long-lasting imprint on mothers lacking care arrangements during the first year of the pandemic. Mothers who lived in areas with remote public school instruction had prolonged reduced employment, particularly mothers without a college degree. Even three years later, the employment rates of Black mothers and mothers without a college degree had still not returned to pre-pandemic employment levels. Among college graduates, many of whom were able to keep working, the gender wage gap expanded.

Today, parents are still dealing with childcare disruptions, resulting in an increase in work disruptions. A new report shows that in 2022, 3.3% of mothers and 1.5% of fathers reported being absent from work in the past week due to childcare problems. An additional 4.1% of mothers and 3.2% of fathers who regularly work full-time had worked part-time in the past week due to childcare problems. These numbers are higher than prior to the pandemic, with mothers continuing to report more work disruptions due to childcare lapses than fathers.

Increasing childcare prices are also putting pressure on parents, many of whom rely on paid childcare to be able to work. Since the start of the pandemic, childcare prices have risen to cover temporary reduced capacity limits, safety equipment needs, significant worker turnover, and rapidly rising inflation. New data from the Women’s Bureau shows that families were paying between $4,810 per year for school-age children in before/aftercare to $17,171 per year for infants (in 2022 dollars), absorbing between 8 percent and 19 percent of family income per child in paid care. In the past year, childcare prices have risen an additional 7% from a year earlier – outpacing inflation (Figure 1) and putting childcare farther out of reach for lower- and middle-income families.

Figure 1. Consumer Price Index for All Items and Day Care and Preschool: 12 Month Percent Change

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index. Authors’ calculations.

How the pandemic impacted care workers and providers

Care workers and providers were profoundly impacted by the pandemic.

Nearly 16,000 childcare centers went out of business in the first year of the pandemic, representing about 9 percent of childcare centers nationwide. Among providers remaining open, new capacity limits drastically reduced the number of children that could be served. Closures and capacity reductions were especially concentrated among providers serving Asian, Black, and Latino children.

Childcare workers were more than twice as likely to experience job loss and employment reductions than workers in other industries (Figure 2) and saw their earnings decline 50% more than other workers. Childcare employment has lagged behind other sectors in its recovery, with the number of employees per childcare establishment remaining below pre-pandemic levels as of 2023. Though public school teachers earn more than childcare workers, and were largely protected from job loss during the pandemic, they left their jobs for retirement at double the rate of other workers. Even as most schools reopened to in-person instruction in Spring 2021, teachers are continuing to deal with increased mental health and well-being concerns among students, difficulty securing resources and equipment, and lost instructional time as a result of the pandemic, increasing the demands in their jobs.

Figure 2. Percentage Change in Number of Employed Individuals in the US Economy and in Select Childcare-Related Jobs: 2018-2022

Note: The sample includes all working age adults (16-65) and uses sample weights. Percentage change calculated in reference to March 2020. Teachers’ employment levels decline during summer months due to seasonality of employment.
Source: Current Population Survey 2018-2022. Authors’ calculations.

Some of the challenges in rebuilding the educational and childcare sector stem from poor compensation of care workers, and inadequate government funding of care providers resulting in what the U.S. Treasury calls a broken market. Childcare workers are paid among the lowest wages of all occupations in the United States: $13.71 an hour in 2022. As prices and inflation surged in 2021 and wages increased for lower-paid workers, childcare worker compensation became even more inadequate, resulting in greater difficulties attracting a sufficient number of workers to the sector to develop adequate supply. Similarly, the education sector has experienced staffing shortages and teachers are underpaid for their qualifications. Taken together, these factors have led to a slower recovery among care workers and providers than the rest of the economy.

The US Care Infrastructure and the Future of Gender Equality

The COVID-19 pandemic drew unprecedented attention to the fragility of the care infrastructure in this country. Longstanding hesitation to government investment in care infrastructure has resulted in a “system” of disconnected and largely privatized care providers, particularly when it comes to the care for younger children, and unaffordable prices for families. In all, by radically disrupting an already fragile care infrastructure, the pandemic has exacerbated economic inequalities by gender as well as by class and race. Gaps in employment and wages between mothers and fathers grew and the slow recovery of the care sector is disproportionately hurting working class women of color. Care infrastructure is the backbone of the economy. Adequate public investment is necessary to increase stability in employment, reduce disparities in labor supply and childcare access, and achieve a more equitable recovery.

About the Authors

Liana Christin Landivar is a senior researcher at the Women’s Bureau in the U.S. Department of Labor and faculty affiliate at the Maryland Population Research Center. She can be reached at liana.c.landivar@gmail.com.

Pilar Gonalons-Pons is the Alber-Klingelhofer Presidential Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at pgonalon@sas.upenn.edu. You can follow her on Twitter at @pilargonalons.

November 14, 2023

Executive Summary: The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality

Prepared by Daniel L. Carlson, University of Utah, and Richard J. Petts, Ball State University, for the Council on Contemporary Families symposium The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality (PDF).

The COVID-19 pandemic upended the lives of families around the world. Aside from its obvious and substantial costs to life and health, the pandemic created crises at both home and work – the consequences of which varied by gender. A new online symposium presented by the Council on Contemporary Families highlights what emerging research tells us about changes to family and work life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, what these changes meant for gender inequalities during the pandemic, and what they mean for the future of gender equality in the US.

In the first briefing paper of this symposium, Liana Christin Landivar and Pilar Gonalons-Pons detail the depths and duration of pandemic closures to schools and daycares in the United States and the consequences these closures had for parents, care workers, and social inequalities. Their research shows that mothers left work at higher rates than fathers to attend to children’s care and educational demands, and this was especially acute for Black mothers and non-college educated mothers who faced prolonged school closures and/or lack of access to remote work. They note that childcare availability in the US has declined substantially since the pandemic (even before the recent end to federal subsidies) while costs have risen substantially, outstripping inflation. In addition to parents being negatively affected by the closure of schools and paid childcare, so teachers and childcare providers– most of whom are women of color – were also adversely affected. Childcare workers had twice the likelihood of losing their jobs as other workers during the pandemic and experienced a 50% decline in earnings. Moreover, poor pay and stressful working conditions led many teachers and care providers to leave their jobs permanently, producing substantial staffing shortages. Landivar and Gonalons-Pons conclude their brief by remarking that the pandemic damaged an already fragile care infrastructure in the US, increasing inequality moving forward by putting quality affordable care even further out of reach for poor families and increasing burdens on mothers.

Pandemic lockdowns portended an increase in domestic labor for families, which has the potential for increasing burdens on women who are conventionally responsible for this work. Using time-diary data, Liana Sayer and Joanna Pepin examine gender differences in parents’ time in housework and childcare during the pandemic with surprising results. They find that parents’ overall time in primary childcare, and the gender gap in primary childcare, remained unchanged during the pandemic. Though mothers increased their time in developmental childcare (e.g., education) early in the pandemic, they spent less time in physical care. By 2021, mothers had reverted to pre-pandemic childcare patterns. Gender gaps in childcare were substantially smaller when mothers were employed and fathers worked from home, suggesting that work-family polices like paid childcare leave that keep women attached to the labor force and job flexibility which provides fathers more time at home are likely to enhance equality in domestic labor. Though the gender gap in childcare remained virtually unchanged, the gender gap in housework and time with children narrowed slightly early in the pandemic as fathers did more housework and spent more time with kids. Nevertheless, change was fleeting as fathers’ time in housework and with children reverted back toward pre-pandemic levels by 2021, though time with kids continues to remain elevated.

In the third brief of our symposium, Jill Yavorsky, Yue Qian, and Liana Christin Landivar detail the costs of domestic labor demands on women’s paid work, earnings, and careers. They note that although official statistics suggest that women’s labor force participation has finally rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, this masks both the costs of the pandemic for women’s careers as well as educational gradients in these costs. Specifically, they highlight that labor force participation rates of non-college educated mothers have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. Moreover, the motherhood wage penalty substantially increased for college educated mothers during the pandemic, reversing twenty years of progress. Using evidence from survey experiments with managers, they note that the motherhood wage penalty may stem from discrimination related to mothers’ childcare issues.

The ability of college-educated mothers to remain attached to the labor force during the pandemic and for fathers to increase their time in childcare stems in part from remote work. In the next brief of this symposium, Wen Fan and Richard Petts show us that although remote work can reduce gender inequalities in some domains, it can exacerbate inequalities in others. Remote work allowed mothers to remain in their paid positions and helped to facilitate fathers’ involvement in domestic labor, but it was also associated with decreases in work hours for mothers (but not fathers). Moreover, they report that although disadvantaged women may prefer remote work, likely because of their limited access to affordable childcare, they accrue fewer benefits using it relative to fathers. The tendency of women to use job flexibility to dedicate more time to unpaid labor at the expense of their paid work, suggests that how remote work is used and by whom matters greatly for the future of gender equality.

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a policy response on multiple levels, not least of which was helping families navigate illness, job furloughs, and the loss of care supports. Jeff Hayes and Elizabeth Peters provide an overview of leave policy in the United States and its benefits to individuals and families. They detail the aims and scope of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) — not only how it fell short of providing the care supports that families in the US needed during the pandemic but also how access to leave continued to be unequally distributed. They conclude with the observation that the COVID-19 pandemic shows us that unexpected events happen and a lack of comprehensive public policy exacerbates the negative effects of these events.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic created conditions that could feasibly reduce gender inequalities at home, and thus help mothers maintain their paid jobs, it appears that inequalities were instead exacerbated. Arielle Kuperberg, Sarah Thébaud, Kathleen Gerson, and Brad Harrington ask: why aren’t more fathers stepping up to shoulder a larger share of childcare and housework in families? Findings from their collective research suggest that entrenched cultural norms regarding masculinity, fatherhood, and breadwinning may be a root cause. Though Americans increasingly embrace men as caregivers, they value their breadwinning role even more. While men themselves desire to be more engaged husbands and fathers, they are skeptical about their abilities to achieve this in the face of workplace cultures that stigmatize and punish “leaning-out.” The power of these norms that encourage male breadwinning and discourage male caregiving are demonstrated both before and during the pandemic in the way out-of-work fathers (ages 30-50) living with their children categorize themselves as “retired” rather than “stay-at-home dads.”

The looming threat of COVID, in addition to substantial disruptions to work and family life, made the pandemic an incredibly stressful time. In the final briefing paper of the symposium, Daniel Carlson and Melissa Milkie discuss why gender disparities in mental health grew during the pandemic. Though mental health declined broadly for both men and women, it declined more precipitously among parents, mothers especially. Importantly, three years later, mental health has yet to improve in the US. Reviewing the literature and findings from their own research, Carlson and Milkie note that major stressors such as job loss, feelings of isolation, worry about COVID, and work-family conflicts were all more likely to be experienced by mothers. They argue that although the ability to be home with one’s family was likely a boon to well-being, it was outweighed in countries like the United States by work-family stress emanating from a distinct lack of policy support. In addition to policy, the authors also point out that gender disparities in mental health during the pandemic also likely stem from pervasive cultural norms for intensive mothers and ideal workers. As family managers, mothers likely bore the brunt of pandemic stress regarding family health and children’s learning. Yet, while mothers may have felt compelled to attend to these responsibilities, they nevertheless felt extreme guilt about the way family issues interfered with their jobs.

The briefing papers in this symposium demonstrate that gender inequalities grew across numerous domains during the COVID-19 pandemic, with potentially long-term consequences. They emphasize that the pandemic created conditions – such as school and daycare closures –in combination with the absence of supportive family care policies and the presence of workplace and gender norms that push care on women and paid work on men, that exacerbated pre-existing inequalities in the United States. At the same time, the authors point out that the pandemic revealed several avenues for how to reduce gender inequalities (e.g., fathers’ remote work; investment in care infrastructure; paid parental leave) and each paper provides clear prescriptions for how we can mitigate the damage inflicted by the pandemic. Such recommendations are vital if we truly hope to reduce gender inequalities in work and family life moving forward.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Daniel L. Carlson is Associate Professor of Family and Consumer Studies at the University of Utah and Treasurer of the Council on Contemporary Families. He can be reached at daniel.carlson@fcs.utah.edu. You can follow him on Twitter at @DanielCarlson_1.

Richard J. Petts is a Professor of Sociology at Ball State University. His research focuses on the intersection of family, work, gender, and policy, and he serves on the Board of Directors of the Council on Contemporary Families. You can learn more about his research by visiting his website (www.richardpetts.com), following him on X (@pettsric), or via email (rjpetts@bsu.edu).

LINKS

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Future of Gender Equality Symposium
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium/

Symposium Video Series
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl5RHw2Sw9zVuayJzF5fT6BUKAPy-wtsP

Executive Summary
Daniel Carlson and Richard Petts
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-executive-summary/

Childcare Challenges During the Pandemic and Their Impact on Parents and Care Providers
Liana Christin Landivar and Pilar Gonalons-Pons
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-childcare/

Pandemic Influences on Gender Inequality in Unpaid Work
Liana Sayer and Joanna Pepin
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-unpaid-work/

Mothers Continue to Experience Career Consequences Three Years into the Pandemic
Jill Yavorsky, Yue Qian, and Liana Christin Landivar
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-paid-labor/

Can Remote Work Fuel Gender Equality? Evidence Shows Cause for Optimism but Challenges Remain
Wen Fan and Richard Petts
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-remote-work/

Leave Laws Support Equity
Jeff Hayes and Elizabeth Peters
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-paid-leave/

Dads Home with Kids Peaked During The COVID-19 Pandemic – But Not for The Reason You Think
Arielle Kuperberg, Sarah Thébaud, Kathleen Gerson, and Brad Harrington
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-gender-norms/

Work-Family Stressors, Gender, and Mental Health during COVID-19 and Beyond
Daniel Carlson and Melissa Milkie
https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/11/14/covid-19-and-gender-equality-symposium-mental-health/

ABOUT CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families. Our members include demographers, economists, family therapists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, communication scholars, and other family social scientists and practitioners.

Founded in 1996 and based at the University of Texas at Austin, the Council’s mission is to enhance the national understanding of how and why contemporary families are changing, what needs and challenges they face, and how these needs can best be met. To fulfill that mission, the Council issues periodic briefing papers and fact sheets, which journalists can sign up to receive by writing to Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com.

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

November 14, 2023

May 31, 2023

Best for Whom? Breastfeeding and Child Development

A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Jessica Houston Su, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

Recent infant formula shortages in the United States have reignited debates about the importance of breastfeeding for child health and development. Major health and medical organizations unanimously recommend that mothers exclusively breastfeed their infants for six months or more, and breastfeeding has become a hallmark of ideal parenting. Children who are breastfed generally have lower rates of child obesity, fewer behavior and conduct disorders in childhood, and higher cognitive test scores compared to children who are not breastfed.

Although over 80% of infants receive some breastmilk, only 26% are exclusively breastfed for the recommended six months. This is partially because breastfeeding is time-intensive and requires a lot of support. As a result, breastfeeding is socially stratified in the United States and is most common among those with the most resources. For example, women with a college degree are twice as likely to exclusively breastfeed for six months compared to those with a high school degree.

Public health initiatives suggest that increasing breastfeeding rates among populations that are less likely to breastfeed is an important strategy for improving children’s health and development. But a growing body of research suggests that benefits of breastfeeding may have been overstated. We cannot conduct randomized controlled trials for breastfeeding, so it’s difficult to tell whether it is directly causing improvements in children’s health, or if breastfed children tend to have better outcomes because of their parent’s other socioeconomic advantages. Studies using sophisticated statistical techniques to account for these complicated dynamics find that, all else equal, the causal effect of breastfeeding is weak or nonexistent. For example, when we compare siblings in the same family who were fed differently (one sibling was breastfed and the other was not, or they were breastfed for different amounts of time), they tend to have very similar physical, behavioral, and cognitive development.

The lack of an average causal benefit of breastfeeding, however, does not mean that it confers no advantages. Averages can obscure substantial variation, particularly for behaviors like breastfeeding that are highly influenced by social and economic factors. In such cases, asking if breast is best is too simplistic a question. Better questions to ask are: Does breastfeeding benefit all children equally? Or do some children reap greater benefits than others?

I conducted a study with my co-authors Kerri Raissian and Jiyeon Kim to answer these questions. Our study analyzed data from a longitudinal nationally representative sample to evaluate the relationship between breastfeeding and a comprehensive set of longer-term developmental outcomes for children ages 4-14. Specifically, we examined body mass index (BMI), three measures of behavioral development, and five measures of cognitive skills. We used statistical techniques to carefully compare children who were breastfed to children who were never breastfed but had very similar characteristics. We also grouped children based on their likelihood of breastfeeding and compared the effects across these different groups to assess whether everyone benefitted equally. We found that breastfeeding provides small benefits for children’s behavioral development, math scores, and academic ability, but only among those that are highly likely to breastfeed. We also found small benefits for children’s reading comprehension and vocabulary, but these effects were concentrated among those who were least likely to breastfeed.

One key takeaway from our study is that breastfeeding does not equally benefit everyone. What explains this variation?

One potential answer is that people experience the costs of breastfeeding differently. Although breastmilk is “free,” breastfeeding is not costless in American society. Breastfeeding is associated with prolonged earnings losses for women, in part due to lack of paid parental leave and time out of the workforce. This economic penalty may be more easily absorbed by women who are financially secure but is a more significant hardship for low-income or single women. Lack of economic resources may offset some of the benefits of breastfeeding for these children who are less likely to breastfeed. This could explain why we found that breastfeeding is related to better behavior, math scores, and academic ability among those who are most likely to breastfeed.

Another potential source of variation is that people experience the benefits of breastfeeding differently. If more advantaged parents are already providing an optimal home environment or parenting in ways that promote their children’s health or cognitive skills, they may not receive an additional boost from breastfeeding. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all parents read to their children from birth through kindergarten, and it is possible that parents who adopt this practice are also likely to follow the AAP recommendations for breastfeeding. If parents who are less likely to breastfeed do not engage in these early literacy activities to the same extent, the benefits of breastfeeding could be amplified among this group. This might explain why we found that breastfeeding is linked with better reading comprehension and vocabulary among children who are least likely to breastfeed. Parents may be less equipped to compensate for quantitative skills given that we did not find this pattern for math scores.

The second key takeaway is that the benefits of breastfeeding are modest. For example, among children who were least likely to breastfeed, those who breastfed for 6 months or more had about 30% of a standard deviation higher reading comprehension score than those who were never breastfed. In comparison, four extra days of mother-child shared reading time per month increases reading achievement by 32% of a standard deviation. On a broader scale, expansions in Universal Pre-K are linked with larger increases in letter-word identification (79% of a standard deviation) and spelling scores (64% of a standard deviation).

To be clear, we are not saying that breastfeeding isn’t an ideal source of nutrition for infants, or that other parenting practices or policies are direct substitutes. Rather, parents and policymakers should consider breastfeeding as one potential tool among others that may provide comparable or larger benefits for longer-term child development. This is especially useful information given the very real tradeoffs that many mothers make. It may also help to relieve some of the stigma and shame that some mothers experience when they are unable to breastfeed.

Our study provides insights for public policy. We highlight socioeconomic and racial inequality in breastfeeding within the United States. The US provides a weak safety net for parents of young children and offers no federal paid family leave. Factors such as race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, education, income, marital status, and employment are strongly related to the likelihood that a mother will breastfeed.

Furthermore, we demonstrate that the social context not only shapes who breastfeeds in American society, but also who benefits most. Efforts to increase breastfeeding rates among populations that are least likely to breastfeed are unlikely to close disparities in child development. The benefits of breastfeeding are largely concentrated among the populations that are already likely to breastfeed. To level the playing field, rather than merely telling mothers that “breast is best,” policies should focus on reducing structural barriers and economic costs for mothers who want to breastfeed. For many mothers in the United States, breastfeeding is ideal but unattainable.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Jessica Houston Su
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
jessica.su@unc.edu

Links

Brief report: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/05/31/breastfeeding-and-child-development-brief-report/
Press release: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/05/31/breastfeeding-and-child-development-press-release/

About CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families, based at the University of Texas-Austin, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of family researchers and practitioners that seeks to further a national understanding of how America’s families are changing and what is known about the strengths and weaknesses of different family forms and various family interventions For more information, contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, coontzs@msn.com.

May 31, 2023