Adolescents’ Time Use in Spain: Does the Parental Human Capital Matter?

Adolescents’ time use is an interesting topic for parents and policymakers. The concern arises because time allocation between productive and unproductive activities shapes the personality of children, which has important long-term consequences on their academic and employment success. Many studies conclude family environment affects how kids spend their time. The household type, the parents’ characteristics and the family customs are related to the way children spend their time. An attractive issue is the effect of the parental education on the time use patterns of kids. The human capital acquired by the parents along with their relations with the family socioeconomic status, the social networks and the access to information constitute alternative scenarios that determine the activities of young people throughout the day and have an impact on their personal development and on their career. The primary objective of this paper is to analyse these topics for Spain, paying special attention to the influence of parents’ education on children’s time use. The empirical analysis use data from the Time Use Survey (INE). This dataset is suited for the purposes of this study since it uses a statistical measure called “time budget”, which records the sequence and duration of activities conducted by a person over a period of 24 h and provides information about the personal characteristics of the household members. The specification and estimation of censored regression models is the methodology applied. The main results reveal that the adolescents’ decisions about time allocation depend on their personal and family characteristics. In particular, parental education exerts a relevant influence on the participation and duration of productive or constructive activities, which is coherent with the predictions of the Ecological Systems Theory.