Maternal time investment in caregiving activities to promote early childhood development: evidence from rural India.

Introduction: Intervention strategies that seek to improve early childhood development outcomes are often targeted at the primary caregivers of children, usually mothers. The interventions require mothers to assimilate new information and then act upon it by allocating sufficient physical resources and time to adopt and perform development promoting behaviours. However, women face many competing demands on their resources and time, returning to familiar habits and behaviours. In this study, we explore mothers' allocation of time for caregiving activities for children under the age of 2, nested within a cluster randomised controlled trial of a nutrition and care for development intervention in rural Haryana, India. Methods: We collected quantitative maternal time use data at two time points in rural Haryana, India, using a bespoke survey instrument. Data were collected from 704 mothers when their child was 12 months old, and 603 mothers when their child was 18 months old. We tested for significant differences in time spent by mothers on different activities when children are 12 months of age vs. 18 months of age between arms as well as over time, using linear regression. As these data were collected within a randomised controlled trial, we adjusted for clusters using random effects when testing for significant differences between the two time points. Results: At both time points, no statistically significant difference in maternal time use was found between arms. On average, mothers spent most of their waking time on household chores (over 6 h and 30 min) at both time points. When children were aged 12 months, approximately three and a half hours were spent on childcare activities for children under the age of 2 years. When children were 18 months old, mothers spent more time on income generating activities (30 min) than when the children were 12 years old, and on leisure (approximately 4 h and 30 min). When children were 18 months old, less time was spent on feeding/breastfeeding children (30 min less) and playing with children (15 min). However, mothers spent more time talking or reading to children at 18 months than at 12 months. Conclusion: We find that within a relatively short period of time in early childhood, maternal (or caregiver) time use can change, with time allocation being diverted away from childcare activities to others. This suggests that changing maternal time allocation in resource poor households may be quite challenging, and not allow the uptake of new and/or optimal behaviours.