[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
  EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

The impact of weather on time allocation to physical activity and sleep of child-parent dyads

Ha Nguyen, Hayley Christian, Huong Thu Le, Luke B. Connelly, Stephen Zubrick and Francis Mitrou

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Purpose Previous studies showed that unfavourable weather conditions discourage physical activity. However, it remains unclear whether unfavourable weather conditions have a differential impact on physical activity in children compared with adults. We aim to explore the differential impact of weather on time allocation to physical activity and sleep by children and their parents. Method We use nationally representative data with time use indicators objectively measured on multiple occasions for more than 1,100 Australian pairs of 12–13-year-old children and their middle-aged parents, coupled with daily meteorological data. We employ an individual fixed effects regression model to estimate the causal impact of weather. Results We find that unfavourable weather conditions, as measured by cold or hot temperatures or rain, cause children to reduce moderate- and vigorous-intensity physical activity time and increase sedentary time. However, such weather conditions have little impact on children’s sleep time or the time allocation of their parents. We also find substantial differential weather impact, especially on children’s time allocation, by weekdays/weekends and parental employment status, suggesting that these factors may contribute to explaining the differential weather impact that we observed. Our results additionally provide evidence of adaptation, as temperature appears to have a more pronounced impact on time allocation in colder months and colder regions. Conclusion Our finding of a negative impact of unfavourable weather conditions on the time allocated to physical activity by children indicates a need to design policies to encourage them to be more physically active on days with unfavourable weather conditions and hence improve child health and wellbeing. Evidence of a more pronounced and negative impact on the time allocated to physical activity by children than their parents suggests that extreme weather conditions, including those associated with climate change, could make children vulnerable to reduced physical activity.

Keywords: Weather; time allocation; physical activity; sleep; family; dyad (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I12 I13 J12 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022, Revised 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/116758/1/MPRA_paper_116758.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The impact of weather on time allocation to physical activity and sleep of child-parent dyads (2021) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:116758

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().

 
Page updated 2024-12-24
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:116758