In wrongful death litigation, the economic loss analysis often focuses on lost earnings and household services. Damages related to household services are a crucial component of a loss analysis, particularly when the decedent did not work outside of the home. Direct household services – cooking, cleaning, primary childcare and household management – are routinely accounted for in economic analyses in wrongful death litigation and are widely accepted by courts.

However, these categories fall short of accounting for the economic value of the services provided by the lost parent. A complete valuation (particularly when the decedent leaves behind young children) should include a consideration of secondary childcare—the supervision, availability, and support provided while a caregiver is engaged in other household or employment-related activities.

The inclusion of these services is not an inflation of damages – it instead provides a more accurate and realistic view of economic losses. Wrongful death law aims to compensate survivors for the economic contributions the decedent would have provided. That goal is undermined when a major portion of childcare is excluded, simply because it wasn’t labeled as the primary activity. Properly identifying and valuing secondary childcare can materially increase the accuracy and credibility of a lost household services analysis, and should be considered calculations of damages for wrongful death claims.

What Is Secondary Childcare?

Secondary childcare refers to time during which a parent or caregiver is legally and practically responsible for a child’s safety, while simultaneously performing another task – including being present and available while children play, watching television or eating a meal with a child, or simply being “on call” when another adult is working, resting, or otherwise unavailable. Unlike primary childcare, which involves direct, dedicated interaction (feeding, bathing, playing, or other active engagement with children), secondary childcare is frequently overlooked—despite being essential to a household’s functioning. Though these tasks may appear informal or incidental, those hours of supervision represent real, necessary services that must be replaced when a parent or caregiver is lost.

Measuring Secondary Childcare

National time-use data, such as the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), tracks the amount of time individuals spend working, completing housework, and providing childcare, as well as time spent on leisure, personal care, eating and sleeping. Additionally, these data explicitly track childcare as a secondary activity – in fact, care of children under the age of 13 is the only “secondary activity” recorded by the ATUS,[1] which illustrates its importance in time studies. Secondary childcare is restricted to time during which at least one child under age 13 – and the respondent themselves – are awake, and excludes time already categorized as primary childcare. 

As may be expected, both economic literature[2] and the data consistently show that parents provide substantial childcare outside of clearly defined primary “childcare hours.” For example, the 2024 ATUS results[3] indicate that, overall, in households with a child under 6, adults spent an average of just 2.53 hours per day caring for children as a primary activity, but 5.41 hours per day providing childcare as a secondary activity – so less than one-third of total childcare time was included as the adult’s “primary activity.” Of the 5.41 hours per day of secondary childcare, only 1.40 hours occurred while “household activities” was the primary activity (a category that includes cooking, cleaning, and other more direct housework) – time that would likely already be captured in an analysis of household services. The majority of secondary childcare occurred instead during leisure activities (1.74 hours per day), with an additional 1.46 hours per day of secondary childcare occurring during personal care activities, eating and drinking, and work-related activities – all time that has been regularly excluded from household services calculations.

Ignoring secondary childcare in this example would exclude a full 4.01 hours of services each day, while including 3.93 hours of direct housework and primary childcare – leaving half of the hours of service unaccounted for. While the actual results vary depending on the age of the child, and the gender, marital status, and employment status of the parents, the overriding theme remains consistent – secondary childcare comprises a significant component of household services where children are present, often exceeding primary childcare time.

Why Secondary Childcare Has Economic Value

In wrongful death cases, household services losses are intended to reflect the replacement cost of the services the decedent would have provided.

If a decedent was responsible for supervising a child, the surviving household must either absorb these responsibilities (often restricting the surviving parent’s ability to work, rest, or manage other household tasks) or purchase replacement services in the market (e.g., nanny, babysitter, or more daycare hours). The inclusion of secondary childcare in the analysis provides a more complete and more realistic representation of economic loss, offering juries a more accurate picture of the total impact on the surviving family.