Recent research has documented the relatively poor performance of boys, especially those from single-mother households, on a number of outcomes. Differences in noncognitive skills are often cited as a main contributing factor. However, we still know little about the underlying mechanisms driving differences in noncognitive skills and other outcomes. This article provides empirical evidence that parental time investments, defined as the amount of time that parents spend participating in activities with their child, change differentially by child gender following a transition from a two-parent to single-mother household. Boys experience larger investment reductions following the change in household structure, which may help facilitate previously documented gender gaps in noncognitive skills for those in single-mother households. Boys lose an estimated additional 3.8 hours per week in fathers’ time investments, nearly 30% of average weekly paternal investments across the sample. The difference is increasing with age, concentrated in leisure and entertainment activities, with little to no evidence that mothers increase investments in boys relative to girls after such transitions.

中文翻译：

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父母时间投资中的家庭构成和性别差异。

最近的研究记录了男孩，尤其是来自单亲家庭的男孩在许多结果上的表现相对较差。非认知技能的差异通常被认为是一个主要的影响因素。然而，我们对驱动非认知技能和其他结果差异的潜在机制仍然知之甚少。本文提供的经验证据表明，父母时间投资（定义为父母与孩子一起参与活动的时间量）在从双亲家庭过渡到单亲家庭后因儿童性别而不同。随着家庭结构的变化，男孩的投资减少了更多，这可能有助于促进以前记录的单亲家庭在非认知技能方面的性别差距。据估计，男孩每周在父亲的时间投资上会额外损失 3.8 小时，几乎是样本中每周平均父亲投资的 30%。这种差异随着年龄的增长而增加，主要集中在休闲和娱乐活动上，几乎没有证据表明在这种转变之后，相对于女孩，母亲会增加对男孩的投资。