What Are You Doing? Children's Use of Time and Well-Being

Maria Gabriella Campolo, Università di Messina

The ways in which children spend their time affect their cognitive and social development (Hofferth and Sandberg, 2001). But, the children can't choose freely, and their time depends upon a set of key factors: demographic and economic characteristics of the family, social norms, parental behaviour . Focusing on the connection in terms of time and resources between mothers and children, we try to understand how Italian children spend their time. Data from the ISTAT – Time Use Survey 2008-2009 are used to estimate jointly (Seemingly Unrelated Regression Estimation model), how mothers and sons spend their time. The results show as the importance of various factors as the territorial and family context contribute to well-being and to development of children. Moreover, the gender difference in allocation of time is present in the first years of life. As in previous studies mother’s education level and employment play also a significant role.