Fathers' commute to work has negative impacts on children's behavior: study

Fathers' commuting to work has multiple negative impacts on children's behavior, a new study said on Monday.

A study conducted by researchers from Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) said children whose fathers commute to work over a long distance tend to have more emotional and social problems.

Using a representative sample from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, WZB researchers, Jianghong Li and Matthias Pollmann-schult, examined the relationship between fathers' commute to work and five domains of children's social and emotional well-being at ages 5 to 6 in Germany.

The study has shown that fathers' daily commute to work was associated with more peer problems in their children two years later.

While daily commuting distance of 40 or more km each way was associated with lower levels of pro-social behaviors, longer daily commuting for 60 km or more each way was linked to more problems with peers.

According to the study, plausible mechanisms that underpin these negative effects include stress and fatigue associated with long commute to work and the father's absence in the home, particularly for fathers who commute weekly to work. These factors may lead to poor parenting on the part of both the father and the mother.

When stressed and fatigued, parents tend to resort to harsh and inconsistent parenting styles, which in turn causes behavioral and emotional problems in children, said the study.

Moreover, fathers' absence from the family during the week can also lead to mother's stress and affect her parenting behavior due to increased workload in the home without the partner's support.

Commuting to work is a common phenomenon in developed countries. Germany ranks the second highest after the Netherlands in terms of average commuting time among the developed European countries.

The study has been published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues. Enditem