Maryland Population Research Center...

MPRC's research on family processes has grown to include the following key areas: 1) time use and parenting; 2) family change and subgroup variation; and 3) men’s role in the family.

Time Use and Parenting

MPRC proudly hosts the leading group of researchers in the country who focus on the time allocations of parents and children. Suzanne Bianchi (Sociology) highlighted maternal time expenditures in her 2000 PAA Presidential Address (Demography, 2000) and assessed parental time investments in children in a subsequent article published in the American Journal of Sociology (Sayer et al., 2004).

In August 2006, Bianchi, with MPRC associates John Robinson (Sociology) and Melissa Milkie (Sociology), published Changing Rhythms of American Family Life (Russell Sage), a book-length investigation of changes in parental time allocation since 1965. Changing Rhythms, published as part of the prestigious Rose Series in Sociology, provides compelling evidence that maternal time devoted to childrearing has increased in the U.S.; that fathers are doing more child care than in the past; and that in two-parent families, the total weekly burden of paid plus unpaid work is gender equal. Work loads remain gender specialized with women doing more unpaid family work and fathers doing more market work, but much less gender specialized than in the past.

Family Change and Subgroup Variation

MPRC Director, Seth Sanders (Economics), along with Suzanne Bianchi (Sociology), are part of the interdisciplinary team that responded to the NICHD initiative on "Designing New Models of Family Change and Variation,” a four-year project that has involved researchers from across the population community. The mandate of the project, described in the 2005 Seltzer et al. article in the Journal of Marriage and Family, is three fold: 1) to assess change and variation in family structure and behaviors in the U.S.; 2) to evaluate existing theories and datasets that are used to explain, understand and study family change and variation; and 3) to develop new models, and if possible, a comprehensive plan, for moving the field forward, much as was done two decades ago with the design of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH).

Men's Role in the Family

As part of a larger NICHD-funded P01 focused on the “Transition to Fatherhood” (Elizabeth Peters, Cornell University P.I. of the P01), MPRC associates Sandra Hofferth (Family Studies) and Natasha Cabrera (Human Development) are collaborating on a component project that investigates intergenerational mechanisms through which “responsible fathering” may be transmitted. The project uses data from multiple data sets. Another focus of the study is the subjective meanings and patterns of fathering within and across family generations and over time. The project investigators meet twice a year and the Maryland group includes MPRC associates Kevin Roy (Family Studies) and Frances Goldscheider (Family Studies). Several papers are in preparation.

Maryland Population Research Center
0124N Cole Student Activities Building (#162)
College Park, MD 20742
Phone: 301-405-6403
Fax: 301-405-5743