Children's Community Context, Time Use and Well-Being

Margot I. Jackson, University of California, Los Angeles
Amy Hsin, University of California, Los Angeles

This project uses data from the PSID/CDS to explore two questions: (1) Do characteristics of neighborhoods influence children’s health and academic related time use?; and (2) Do neighborhood-based differences in time use influence children’s health and academic success, making time use a mediator in the neighborhood/well-being relationship? Researchers have shown that neighborhoods influence children’s health and academic achievement, independent of other important contexts. In addition, studies using time diaries demonstrate that children’s time use varies by family and socioeconomic environment. These two strains of research are separate, however, and raise several questions about non-family determinants of children’s health and school-related time use, and about how and why neighborhoods matter for children’s quality of life. In the end, our goal is to begin to unravel the space in between the neighborhood structure/child well-being relationship by integrating two separate literatures and considering time use as a mechanism through which neighborhoods influence children’s health and academic performance.