After three decades of decline, the amount of time spent by parents on childcare in the U.S. began to rise dramatically in the mid-1990s. Moreover, the rise in childcare time was particularly pronounced among college-educated parents. Why would highly educated parents increase the amount of time they allocate to childcare at the same time that their own market returns have skyrocketed? After finding no empirical support for standard explanations, such as selection or income effects, we offer a new explanation. We argue that increased competition for college admissions may be an important source of these trends. The number of college-bound students has surged in recent years, coincident with the rise in time spent on childcare. The resulting “cohort crowding” has led parents to compete more aggressively for college slots by spending increasing amounts of time on college preparation. Our theoretical model shows that, since college-educated parents have a comparative advantage in college preparation, rivalry leads them to increase preparation time by a greater amount than less-educated parents. We provide empirical support for our explanation with a comparison of trends between the U.S. and Canada, and a comparison across racial groups in the U.S.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
15284.
Length: Date of creation: Aug 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15284
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2007.
"National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life,"
Working Papers
1034, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2008.
"National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life,"
Working Papers
1061, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
[Downloadable!]
Alan B. Krueger & Daniel Kahneman & David Schkade & Norbert Schwarz & Arthur A. Stone, 2007.
"National Time Accounting: The Currency of Life,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Measuring the Subjective Well-Being of Nations: National Accounts of Time Use and Well-Being, pages 9-86
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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