TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ramey,Garey
AU  - Ramey,Valerie A.
TI  - The Rug Rat Race
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15284
PY  - 2009
Y2  - August 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15284
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15284.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Garey Ramey
Department of Economics, 0508
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA   92093-0508
Tel: 619/534-5721;  gramey@weber.ucsd.edu
E-Mail: gramey@ucsd.edu

Valerie A. Ramey
Department of Economics, 0508
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0508
Tel: 858/534-2388
Fax: 858/534-7040
E-Mail: VRAMEY@UCSD.EDU
AB  - 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.
ER  -