Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Time use for household tasks performed by school-age children in two-parent, two-child Oregon families

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  • The purpose of this study was to investigate the household tasks that school-age children perform and the average amount of time spent performing those tasks. The sample included 219 children in 135 families taken from the Oregon sample of 210 families interviewed for the Northeast Regional Research Project 113: "An Interstate Urban/Rural Comparison of Families' Time Use." Families included in this study were limited to those composed of two parents and at least one school-age child, since time data were not gathered for children under six years of age. Eighty-four families had two school-age children and 51 families had one school-age child and one younger child under six years of age. There were 116 boys and 103 girls in the 66 rural and 69 urban families. A questionnaire had been used to collect information on demographic characteristics and household data. A time chart had been used to record the precategorized activities of the homemaker, spouse, and children over six years of age for two separate 24-hour periods. The demographic variables used in the data analysis included age-group of the child, sex of the child, age of the sibling, place of residence, whether the homemaker was gainfully employed or a fulltime homemaker, occupation of homemaker, occupation of spouse, educational level of homemaker, educational level of spouse, and family income level. The chi square test of independence was used to determine whether there were relationships between the tasks school-age children performed and the demographic variables. Children's contributions to household work were concentrated in food preparation, dishwashing, shopping, housecleaning, and maintenance of home, yard, car, and pets. Fewer than 28 percent of the children contributed to care and construction of clothing and household linens, physical and nonphysical care of family members, or management. Overall, the types of tasks children performed were dependent upon the age of the child and the age of his/her sibling. Children age twelve through seventeen and those with younger siblings over six were more likely to perform household tasks than other children. Of the 219 children included in the study, 206 children (94.1 percent) contributed to household work. The number of tasks performed by a child ranged from zero to seven for one day and from zero to ten for a two-day period. One-way analysis of variance was used to test for differences in the average amount of time spent on all tasks when respondents were grouped by selected independent variables. Two null hypotheses were rejected indicating that there was a significant difference in the average amount of time spent on household tasks by school-age children according to the age-group and the sex of the child. Children ages 15 through 17 spent significantly more time performing household tasks than children in other age groups, and girls spent significantly more time performing household tasks than boys. The amount of time children contributed to household work ranged from five minutes per day to over fourteen hours per day. The average time contributed to household tasks by children was slightly over 81 minutes per day.
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