Date of Award:

5-1991

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Applied Sciences, Technology, and Education

Department name when degree awarded

Home Economics and Consumer Education

Committee Chair(s)

Marilyn Noyes

Committee

Marilyn Noyes

Committee

Jane McCullough

Committee

Joan McFadden

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how selected factors are related to the time children in single parent families spend in the household tasks of meal preparation; dishwashing; shopping; housecleaning; maintenance of home, yard, car and pets and nonphysical care of family members.

The data for this study were collected from 89 female headed single-parent/ two-child households in the greater metropolitan Salt Lake City Utah area. Time use data were collected for mothers and their children between the ages of 6 and 17. There were 178 children in the 89 families, of which 150 were in the specified age range.

It was not possible to select a random sample for this study. Thus, to reflect a random sample of single-parent/ two-child urban Utah households, data were weighted using standard weighting procedures and 1980 census figures.

Two instruments were used to collect data from respondents, a time diary and a questionnaire. Research that has examined children in single-parent households has compared their time allocations to those of children in two-parent households. There has been no research that has specifically examined variations in the time spent by children in single-parent families that could be related to their household work.

Multiple regression was used to analyze the relationship between a child's age, gender, birth order, gender of sibling, mother's time in paid work and school attendance, household income, season of the year, household equipment and certain household conditions with the amount of time children of single-parent families spent in the six selected household tasks.

This study found that children of single-parent families spent varying amounts of time on household tasks depending on the task, age of the child, gender of the child, gender of the sibling, mother's time in paid work and school attendance, household income, season of the year, household equipment and certain household conditions.

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