Formation of Children's Cognitive and Socioemotional Skills: Is All Parental Time Equally Effective?

This study estimates the distinct effect of mother, father, and joint parental time investments and compares the effects of mothers' and fathers' parenting styles on child development. Joint parental educational time improves children's cognitive skills more than mother-only time. For verbal skills, this effect is driven by families where parents have at least a bachelor's degree. Mothers' monitoring benefits children's socioemotional skills more than fathers' monitoring. Fathers' monitoring improves children's verbal skills more than mothers' monitoring.