Sandra Hofferth, Ph.D.

Much of Hofferth’s research focuses on children’s time, including estimates of children’s media, studying, and sports participation time as well as estimates of time children spend with their mothers and fathers. Results to date include large increases over the past 5-6 years in computer and video game use and declines in active sports participation and outdoor leisure activities among 6-12 year olds. She has also found evidence that early participation in sports (when children are 6-12) is associated with lower risk of overweight when they are 13-18. In the area of fathers and fathering, Hofferth completed two papers that examined the association between marital status, biological relationship of the father, involvement with children and child development (Journal of Marriage and the Family and Demography). Drawing from the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, these papers used innovative methods to test whether family structure differences in father involvement were due to selectivity of men into families or to actual differences in parenting. In the public policy area, Hofferth examined the impact of U.S. parental leave statutes on employment of new mothers after childbirth in a paper with S. Curtin (Work and Occupations 2006). Hofferth’s work on welfare reform and public policy over the past decade is summarized in the Spring 2002 issue of Contexts: Understanding People in their Social Worlds, a journal of the American Sociological Association. Hofferth demonstrated that welfare reform policies, particularly the work requirement, contributed to the increased exits of single mothers from AFDC in the mid-1990s (Population Research and Policy Review 2002). Returns to public assistance tended to result from changes in personal circumstances rather than public policies (Social Science Research 2005). Hofferth, like many others, failed to find an effect of welfare reform policies such as family caps on nonmarital childbearing (Population Research and Policy Review 2006). Finally, Hofferth found no evidence of either poor children being more likely to be overweight or that food programs contribute to overweight among poor children (Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 2005).