Variation in Parental Time: Does Parents’ Immigration Status Matter?

Abstract

Children of immigrants have been outperforming native-born children in academic achievements. Immigrant parenting styles have been the center of discussion around immigrant children’s academic outperformance. One factor, parental time, has been less studied than other components of immigrant parenting styles, yet immigrant parents with different legal status and duration of residence can spend substantially different time on child education. The current study helps to expand prior research of immigrant parenting by focusing on parental time and its variation by parents’ immigration status. The study draws a sample of 77,337 observations from American Time Use Survey (ATUS) to compare the parental time of naturalized, nonnaturalized, and native- born parents. Only naturalized parents invest more time in education-related primary childcare than native-born parents. By contrast, nonnaturalized parents spend more time on cultural enrichment activities while caring for at least one child under 13, compared to native-born parents. From May to December 2020, both groups of immigrant parents have experienced more substantial increases in educational parental time than native-born parents. Results indicate the importance of childcare-related social supports for nonnaturalized parents.