Counting Fathers as Babysitters: Why It Matters | Kristin Maschka's Blog
If the data the Census Bureau uses for their report, “Who’s Minding the Kids?” , treats mothers caring for children as totally invisible, and fathers caring for children as equivalent to “babysitting,” we end up with an inaccurate and nearly useless picture of what’s really going on with today’s families.
If time that mothers spend caring for their children is not counted at all simply because it’s assumed they do it anyway, then it becomes invisible and the real number of hours of unpaid childcare a family needs to provide in order to support their employment also becomes invisible.
If we count mothers’ parenting hours and fathers’ parenting hours as apples and oranges, we don’t have the data we need to see how mothers and fathers are sharing family work and employment, how traditional roles may be changing over time, and what that means for families and employers.
If we don’t know – in a gender-neutral way – who is providing unpaid care to children, grandchildren, or elderly relatives and how that impacts them, communities cannot plan to provide enough paid childcare and eldercare.
From a methodological standpoint, the way they went about collecting data is an utter disaster. Of course it skews results when you make assumptions about families based on stereotypes rather than actual circumstances in people’s homes. Particularly when the stereotypes you’re basing your assumptions on are, oh, around 40 years out of date. I just…I can’t…
-
crazybutmine liked this
-
crazybutmine reblogged this from fullydomesticated
-
geekymommy liked this
-
stonedjoy liked this
-
fullydomesticated reblogged this from whenrobotsreproduce
-
digitaljourney liked this
-
whenrobotsreproduce posted this
