To browse Academia. The authors review studies on time use of children and adolescents around the world and discuss developmental implications of population differences. Industrialization and schooling are linked to dramatic declines in time spent on household and wage labor.
This labor is often unchallenging, sometimes hazardous; developmental benefits often do not increase above a limited number of hours; hence, reduction in these activities opens time for activities that may be more developmentally beneficial.
Adolescents in. East Asian postindustrial societies spend this freed-up time in schoolwork, a use associated with lower intrinsic motivation but high achievement and economic productivity. Adolescents in North America spend more time in leisure, associated with greater self-direction but of an uncertain relation to development. Age, gender, and socioeconomic differences in activities and with whom time is spent are also considered.
This study investigates how child and adolescent time use differs across Finland, Italy, Spain and the UK, four countries capturing clearly distinct policy and cultural regimes. Studying children's time use cross-nationally provides new understandings of the micro-macro drivers of children's daily activities with critical implications for their personal development, future lifestyles and identity formation.
Findings are consistent with the Cross-Cultural Hypothesis by revealing that Finnish children spend the lowest time with parents and the highest time alone and with 'others', after accounting for multiple factors. In Italy and Spain, children's time with parents is the highest, and time alone and with others clearly lowest. The UK lies somewhere in between the Scandinavian and Mediterranean models.
