Basic care, play, and teaching: the home learning environment and the ‘developmental gradient’ in time use with children

Abstract

Based on the concept of educational quality of the home learning environment, stimulating and responsive family time is crucial for children’s development. In turn, time use depends on the developmental stages in childhood. International studies indicate that family patterns of time use are associated with a family’s resources (i.e. level of education) and age of the children. To detect assumed time use patterns, this paper distinguishes between caring activities (basic care) and educational activities (play and teaching) of daily family life with children of various age groups (infants, preschool aged children, and primary school aged children). Data are drawn from the Time Use Survey in 2012/2013 conducted by the German Federal Statistical Office (N = 560). Tobit regression analyses show that time use for each activity differs between families with low and families with high level of education, referring to various child age groups. The results indicate that a ‘developmental gradient’ for time use in the home learning environment is evident.