A new study has found that single mothers spend less time with their children than their married counterparts. Sarah Kendig and Suzanne Bianchi from the University of Maryland examined differences in the amount and type of time that single, cohabiting, and married mothers spend with their children. They found that co-habiting and married mothers spend similar amounts of time caring for their children, while single mothers spend less time with their children.

However, if single mothers had the same level of education and employment as married mothers, they would spend the same amount of time with their children too.

The reason why single mothers spend less time is they have higher employment rates — and employed mothers spend less time caring for their children than mothers who are not employed. “This suggests that if we want to equalise maternal investments in time with children, we could do so by encouraging policies that focus on improving educational and employment opportunities for single mothers,” the authors conclude.