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The Rug Rat Race

The Rug Rat Race. By Garey Ramey & Valerie A. Ramey. Overview of Paper. We show that after trending downward for three decades, time spent in childcare in the U.S. began to increase dramatically in the mid-1990s, particularly for educated parents.

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The Rug Rat Race

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  1. The Rug Rat Race By Garey Ramey & Valerie A. Ramey

  2. Overview of Paper • We show that after trending downward for three decades, time spent in childcare in the U.S. began to increase dramatically in the mid-1990s, particularly for educated parents. • We test and reject numerous existing explanations, such as selection, income effects, safety concerns, enjoyment, and work schedules • We find that education and extracurricular activities account for an important part of the increase in childcare time. • We present a new explanation for the sharp run-up in childcare time: Increased competition for college admission has led to a “Rug Rat Race” • We show that childcare time did not change much in Canada, where competition for college admission is much less than in the U.S.

  3. U.S. Data Used

  4. Estimation Details 1.Definition of childcare: Basic childcare, helping, organizing activities for, teaching to, talking, reading, playing with, medical care, dealing with day care providers, travel related to childcare 2. Samples: Age 18-64, not student, “Mother” and “Father” are defined as having a child under 18 in the household. 3. Controls: baseline controls for parents’ age, year of survey and college education interaction. Extra (available 1975, 2000, 2003-2007): marital status, quadratic in # of children, 6 dummies for age of youngest child

  5. Weekly Childcare by Mothers(Ages 25-34) Note: most estimates from the mid-1990s are statistically different from 1975 and college-educated estimates are statistically different from less educated estimates.

  6. Weekly Childcare by Fathers(Ages 25-34)

  7. Effects of Adding Additional ControlsIncrease in Childcare Time, Average 2003-2007 relative to 1975 The full set of controls includes: dummies for parent’s age, marital status, quadratic in the number of children, five dummy variables for age of youngest child.

  8. Trends in Categories of Childcare • What types of childcare have increased the most? • To ensure comparability, we use only the 1965, 1975, 1985, 1995, 1998, and 2000 time use surveys because they have: • Same activity codes • Allow reasonable controls, such as the number of young children

  9. Types of Childcare Total:4.7 hours Educ: 1 hrs Play: 1.2 hrs Travel: 0.6 hrs Activities & travel Care of older children Care of young children Play Education

  10. Types of Childcare Total:4.7 hours Educ: 1 hrs Play: 1.2 hrs Travel: 0.6 hrs Activities & travel Care of older children Care of young children Play Education

  11. Mothers with children 5 yrs and over, 2007 Total:4.7 hours Educ: 1 hrs Play: 1.2 hrs Travel: 0.6 hrs

  12. Existing explanations for the rise in childcare • Sample selection • Income effects • Safety concerns • Enjoyment • More flexible work schedules

  13. 1. Sample Selection “Because parenthood is more of a choice now, those who decide to become parents are those who want to put more time into parenthood.” Test of hypothesis: Has childcare time changed when we average over the entire adult population, including nonparents?

  14. Test for Sample Selection

  15. 2. Income Effects “A positive childcare-income gradient might explain the increase in childcare over time as well as the difference by education level.” Test of hypothesis: Can the cross-sectional relationship between childcare time and household income explain the time trends?

  16. Pooled cross-section data from 2003-2007Full set of controls, including richer education dummies: high school dropout, college graduate, post-college.Can the 30 % ($21,000) increase in real household income since 1975 explain the increase in childcare?No.

  17. Mothers: Regression of Childcare Time On Household Income (income in thousands of $2007, childcare in hours per week)

  18. 3. Safety “Increased crime rates made parents afraid to allow children to play unsupervised in the neighborhood. They enrolled them in organized activities instead.” Violent Crime Rates

  19. 4. Enjoyment “Childcare is an enjoyable activity, and thus is much more like leisure than other home production activities.” • Counter-evidence: • In the Krueger, et al. surveys, basic childcare ranks below cooking and housework for women according to their unpleasantness index. • When we exclude playing with children from our childcare measures, the increase is somewhat smaller but still significant. The increase in play accounts for 3 of the 9 hour increase for college-educated mothers and 1 of the 4 hour increase for less-educated mothers.

  20. 5. More Flexible Work Schedules “Parents today have more flexible work schedules, so they can spend more time on childcare.” Change in time spent in childcare from 1975 to 2007 Hours per week

  21. Another Possible Explanation: The “Rug Rat Race” Could the increase in time spent in childcare be linked to the increased competition to get into college? • “The already crazed competition for admission to the nation’s most prestigious universities and colleges became even more intense this year, with many logging record low acceptance rates.” (New York Times, April 1, 2008) • “Attending the local public university is no longer a birthright. An explosion in applications has allowed the schools to reject students in record numbers.” (CollegeJournal from the Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2006) • “Middle- and upper-income families became engaged in an arms race with their neighbors to prepare their children for college (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 22, 2006)

  22. Increased Demand For College Slots in the U.S. Demand for college has increased in part because the returns to going to college have increased substantially in the last three decades. Bound and Turner (2007) show that the supply of slots at 4-year colleges does not respond as much to demand.

  23. Why Demand for College is Growing College Premium in Wages in U.S. Full-Time, Full-Year Workers, Ages 22-64 But the increase in the college wage premium leads to a trade-off for college educated parents. We will present a theory showing what assump req.

  24. Effect on Parents’ and Students’ Behavior American Academy of Pediatrics (2007): “ The college-admissions process has become much more rigorous in recent years, large because of a baby boom hitting the college years. Parents receive the message that if their children are not well prepared, well balanced, and high-achieving, they will not get a desired spot in higher education. Even parents who wish to take a lower-key approach to child rearing fear slowing down when they perceive everyone else is on the fast track. Children are encouraged to build a college resumethrough both academic excellence and a wide variety of activities and volunteer efforts starting at youngerages…The pressure for admission to select schools begins for some families long before college. Selection for private preschool programs can even be competitive, and parents may need to consider how best to ‘package’ their preschoolers.”

  25. Theory: Intuition • Higher-educated parents have a comparative advantage in investing in their children, but they also have a higher opportunity cost • When slots at first-tier colleges are relatively plentiful, the marginal slots are filled by children of less-educated parents • When first-tier slots become relatively scarce, rivalry for the marginal slots shifts to the better-educated parents • A “rug rat race” among these parents drives up both admissions requirements and the time spent on childcare

  26. Time Paths of College PreparationEffect of rise in both college premium and # of high school graduates

  27. Comparison between U.S. and Canada • Canada and the U.S. share a great deal in terms of culture and sociology. If the source of the increase in childcare time in the U.S. is sociological, we would expect Canada to be subject to the similar influences. 2. However, the returns to college have increased more in the U.S. than in Canada. • Between 1980 and 2000, the college wage premium in Canada rose between 5 – 10 percentage points (Boudarbat, Lemieux, and Riddell (2006) • In the U.S., it rose more than 25 percentage points (Autor, Katz, and Kearney (2008).

  28. Comparison between U.S. and Canada • The competition to get into college is completely different in Canada (Davies and Hammack (2005) U.S. higher education is very hierarchical. Public believes that where you go to college really matters. Competition on SATs, APs, high school activities Canada: no SATs, no hierarchy, more emphasis on major than college.

  29. Our Theory’s Prediction Time spent on childcare should have increased much less in Canada than in the U.S., particularly among the college-educated. To test this, we use the GSS 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2005 for English-speaking households.

  30. Conclusions • Dramatic rise in childcare time among the college-educated in the U.S., but not in Canada • Most of the rise occurred since the early 1990s. • At the same time, competition to get into college increased • Our theory predicts that increased competition for college leads to a “rug rat race” which drives up both admissions requirements and the time spent on childcare.

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