Overview
- Children aged 0–5 receive about 37 more minutes of parental time per day when at least one parent holds a university degree, adding up to roughly 1,125 extra hours over five years and exceeding ten percent of time spent in preschool settings.
- Parents with higher educational attainment devote around 20 additional minutes daily to reading, being read to, conversations, and homework help, a gap that in primary school equals roughly 12% of classroom time.
- Families in the highest income group spend nearly three times more per month on tutoring, books, and extracurricular activities per child than families in the lowest income group.
- Parental time declines sharply as children age, from about eleven hours per day in the first year to around two hours by age 17.
- The analysis uses Germany’s 2022 time-use survey alongside 2018 income and consumption data, and BIB director Katharina Spieß calls for measures that strengthen the family as an educational setting in the earliest years.