PARENTING IN MAJORITY WORLD ASIAN COUNTRIES
This chapter examines cognitive and socioemotional caregiving practices of mothers, fathers, and children’s other caregivers in 53,044 families with children 36-59 months of age in 12 Asian countries. Mothers engaged in the most reported cognitive and socioemotional caregiving practices, followed by children’s other caregivers, followed by fathers, and that this pattern was replicated in most individual countries. The more mothers engaged in cognitive and socioemotional caregiving practices, the more fathers engaged in those practices, but the less other caregivers engaged in those same practices. Girls and boys experienced equivalent levels of caregiving regardless of whether that caregiving was delivered by mothers, fathers, or other caregivers. Finally, country-level differences in average mother, father, and other caregiver caregiving practices were not associated with early child development scores. However, when comparing caregivers who share the same cultural context, mothers, fathers, and other caregivers who engage in more cognitive caregiving practices have children with higher child development scores. Collectively, these findings provide a new perspective into what caregiving looks like and how it operates in Asian majority world countries.
