IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hka/wpaper/2020-068.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Education Gradient in Maternal Enjoyment of Time in Childcare

Author

Listed:
  • Ariel Kalil

    (The University of Chicago)

  • Susan E. Mayer

    (University of Chicago)

  • William Delgado

    (University of Chicago)

  • Lisa A. Gennetian

    (Duke University)

Abstract

Studies document large differences in the amount of time mothers spend in childcare by maternal education, even when controlling for characteristics such as income, employment hours, and work schedules. One possible explanation for this observed difference is that highly educated mothers find time in childcare to be more enjoyable. To inform this hypothesis, we examine education-based differences in mothers' average feelings during their time in childcare using pooled data from the 2010, 2012, and 2013 Well-being Modules of the American Time Use Survey. Among all mothers, spending time in childcare is associated with higher positive feelings than is spending time in other activities. However, highly educated mothers do not enjoy their time in childcare more than less-educated mothers. Findings are robust to controls for mother fixed effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Ariel Kalil & Susan E. Mayer & William Delgado & Lisa A. Gennetian, 2020. "The Education Gradient in Maternal Enjoyment of Time in Childcare," Working Papers 2020-068, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2020-068
    Note: MIP
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Kalil_Mayer_Delgado_etal_2020_education-gradient-maternal-enjoyment.pdf
    File Function: First version, June 14, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Amy Hsin & Christina Felfe, 2014. "When Does Time Matter? Maternal Employment, Children’s Time With Parents, and Child Development," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1867-1894, October.
    2. Daniel Hallberg & Anders Klevmarken, 2003. "Time for children: A study of parent's time allocation," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(2), pages 205-226, May.
    3. James Heckman & Flavio Cunha, 2007. "The Technology of Skill Formation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 31-47, May.
    4. Daniela Del Boca & Christopher Flinn & Matthew Wiswall, 2014. "Household Choices and Child Development," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 137-185.
    5. Cardoso, Ana Rute & Fontainha, Elsa & Monfardini, Chiara, 2008. "Children and Parents Time Use: Empirical Evidence on Investment in Human Capital in France, Italy and Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 3815, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Jonathan Guryan & Erik Hurst & Melissa Kearney, 2008. "Parental Education and Parental Time with Children," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 23-46, Summer.
    7. Gimenez-Nadal, José Ignacio & Sevilla, Almudena, 2016. "Intensive Mothering and Well-being: The Role of Education and Child Care Activity," IZA Discussion Papers 10023, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman & Susanne M. Schennach, 2010. "Estimating the Technology of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skill Formation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(3), pages 883-931, May.
    9. Alan B. Krueger, 2007. "Are We Having More Fun Yet? Categorizing and Evaluating Changes in Time Alloction," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(2), pages 193-218.
    10. Anne H. Gauthier & Timothy M. Smeeding & Frank F. Furstenberg, 2004. "Are Parents Investing Less Time in Children? Trends in Selected Industrialized Countries," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 30(4), pages 647-672, December.
    11. C. Russell Hill & Frank P. Stafford, 1974. "Allocation of Time to Preschool Children and Educational Opportunity," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 9(3), pages 323-341.
    12. Ann Meier & Kelly Musick & Sarah Flood & Rachel Dunifon, 2016. "Mothering Experiences: How Single Parenthood and Employment Structure the Emotional Valence of Parenting," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(3), pages 649-674, June.
    13. Daniel Kahneman & Alan B. Krueger, 2006. "Developments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 3-24, Winter.
    14. Charlene Kalenkoski & Gigi Foster, 2008. "The quality of time spent with children in Australian households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 243-266, September.
    15. Hans Bloemen & Elena Stancanelli, 2014. "Market hours, household work, child care, and wage rates of partners: an empirical analysis," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 51-81, March.
    16. Suzanne Bianchi, 2000. "Maternal employment and time with children: Dramatic change or surprising continuity?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(4), pages 401-414, November.
    17. Rachel Connelly & Jean Kimmel, 2015. "If You're Happy and You Know It: How Do Mothers and Fathers in the US Really Feel about Caring for Their Children?," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 1-34, January.
    18. Ariel Kalil & Rebecca Ryan & Michael Corey, 2012. "Diverging Destinies: Maternal Education and the Developmental Gradient in Time With Children," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 49(4), pages 1361-1383, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jo Blanden & Matthias Doepke & Jan Stuhler, 2022. "Education inequality," CEP Discussion Papers dp1849, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    2. Ariel Kalil & Susan Mayer & Rohen Shah, 2020. "Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on Family Dynamics in Economically Vulnerable Households," Working Papers 2020-143, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gimenez-Nadal, Jose Ignacio & Sevilla, Almudena, 2016. "Intensive Mothering and Well-being: The Role of Education and Child Care Activity," MPRA Paper 74249, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Nicoletti, Cheti & Tonei, Valentina, 2020. "Do parental time investments react to changes in child’s skills and health?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    3. Kertesi, Gábor & Kézdi, Gábor & Hajdu, Tamás, 2022. "Idő és pénz a gyermeknevelésben Magyarországon, 1993-2010 [Time and money in raising children in Hungary, 1993-2010]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1255-1297.
    4. Slawa Rokicki & Mark E. McGovern, 2020. "Heterogeneity in Early Life Investments: A Longitudinal Analysis of Children's Time Use," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(3), pages 647-676, September.
    5. Emilia Del Bono & Marco Francesconi & Yvonne Kelly & Amanda Sacker, 2016. "Early Maternal Time Investment and Early Child Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(596), pages 96-135, October.
    6. Samantha Trajkovski, 2019. "California Paid Family Leave and Parental Time Use," Center for Policy Research Working Papers 217, Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
    7. Juan Carlos Campaña & J. Ignacio Giménez-Nadal & José Alberto Molina, 2020. "Self-employed and Employed Mothers in Latin American Families: Are There Differences in Paid Work, Unpaid Work, and Child Care?," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 52-69, March.
    8. Alice Schoonbroodt, 2018. "Parental child care during and outside of typical work hours," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 453-476, June.
    9. Benjamín Villena-Rodán & Cecilia Ríos-Aguilar, 2011. "Causal Effects of Maternal Time-Investment on Children's Cognitive Outcomes," Documentos de Trabajo 285, Centro de Economía Aplicada, Universidad de Chile.
    10. Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio & Molina, Jose Alberto, 2015. "Health status and the allocation of time: Cross-country evidence from Europe," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 188-203.
    11. Zhu, Guozhong & Vural, Gulfer, 2013. "Inter-generational effect of parental time and its policy implications," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1833-1851.
    12. J. Gimenez-Nadal & Jose Molina, 2013. "Parents’ education as a determinant of educational childcare time," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 719-749, April.
    13. Gimenez-Nadal, Jose Ignacio & Sevilla, Almudena, 2012. "Trends in time allocation: A cross-country analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1338-1359.
    14. J Alberto Molina & J Ignacio Giménez-Nadal & José A Cuesta & Carlos Gracia-Lazaro & Yamir Moreno & Angel Sanchez, 2013. "Gender Differences in Cooperation: Experimental Evidence on High School Students," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-1, December.
    15. Gahramanov, Emin & Hasanov, Rashad & Tang, Xueli, 2020. "Parental involvement and Children's human capital: A tax-subsidy experiment," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 16-29.
    16. Katie Vinopal & Seth Gershenson, 2017. "Re-Conceptualizing Gaps by Socioeconomic Status in Parental Time with Children," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 623-643, September.
    17. Nicoletti, Cheti & Tonei, Valentina, 2017. "The Response of Parental Time Investments to the Child's Skills and Health," IZA Discussion Papers 10993, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Giulia M. Dotti Sani, 2022. "The Intrinsic Value of Childcare: Positive Returns of Childcare Time on Parents’ Well-Being and Life Satisfaction in Italy," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 1901-1921, June.
    19. Gimenez-Nadal, Jose Ignacio & Molina, José Alberto, 2021. "How do women allocate their available time in Europe? Differences with men," GLO Discussion Paper Series 908, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    20. Joseph Price & Luke P. Rodgers & Jocelyn S. Wikle, 2021. "Dinner timing and human capital investments in children," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(4), pages 1047-1075, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    maternal time in childcare; mothers' enjoyment of childcare; maternal education; time use;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D19 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Other
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2020-068. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jennifer Pachon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mfichus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.