Helene Le Forner (Aix-Marseille Université) will present "Formation of Children’s Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Skills : Are All Parental Times Equal ?"

Abstract : This paper investigates the heterogeneity in the effect of parental times on child’s development, described as cognitive and socio-emotional skills. Using detailed time-use diaries from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), I estimate cognitive and socio-emotional skills production functions using a number of specifications : OLS gives some benchmark estimates, some of the assumptions are relaxed estimating a Value Added and a Cumulative Value Added Models ; a GMM model allows to account for response of parents to the child’s skills improvement. I shed light on the heterogeneity across parental times for logical abilities and socio-emotional skills. Time spent on educational activities with the father has a smaller effect than time spent with both parents together or with the mother on the child’s cognitive skills and socio-emotional skills. Using a GMM model, the differences are however only statistically significant for socio-emotional skills. For cognitive skills, this relation is however reversed where time spent on general care is concerned. Differences are statistically different from zero for logical abilities.