Increasing Returns to Education and Progress towards a College Degree

Returns to college have increased, but graduation rates have changed relatively little. Modifying a human capital model of college enrollment to endogenize time-to-graduation, we predict that higher returns to education will both speed graduation and increase enrollment. Some of those new entrants may, however, take longer to graduate. Using the 1989 and 1995 Beginning Postsecondary Studies, we employ a multinomial logit to model the association between individual and family characteristics, and five-year college outcomes: graduation, continued enrollment, and non-enrollment. Between cohort differences arise either because the characteristics of those entering college are different or because the relations between characteristics and outcomes have changed. We utilize a Oaxaca-Blinder style decomposition to distinguish between these two alternatives, attributing differences in characteristics to newly attracted students and differences in the relations between characteristics and outcomes to historically attracted students behaving differently. It is changes in behavior that explain the increased progress we observe.Higher Education, Graduation Rates, Persistence

Institutions, Social Norms, and Bargaining Power: An Analysis of Individual Leisure Time in Couple Households

We exploit time use data from Denmark and the United States to examine the impact institutions and social norms have on individuals' bargaining power within a household, hypothesizing that the more generous social welfare system and more egalitarian social norms in Denmark will mitigate the impact standard economic power measures have upon couples' time use. Further we posit that leisure time will be more sensitive to power considerations than housework time which may be more influenced by preferences regarding household public goods, to gendered notions of time use, and to censoring. Our results are generally supportive of these hypotheses, with leisure time on non-work days in the US being particularly responsive to economic power. In addition, we find some evidence that institutions matter as women in the US who are more likely to receive welfare benefits enjoy more leisure time than would be suggested by their economic power alone.Time Use, Power, Leisure, Institutions, Norms

Reported Progress under the Student Right-to-Know Act: How Reliable is It?

The Student Right-to-Know Act requires colleges to provide institution-specific information on graduation rates for students initially enrolling full-time in the fall term. Not all students enroll in that fashion, especially at two-year institutions. We use data on degree-seeking students from the 1996/2001 Beginning Post-Secondary Survey to identify students for whom statistics are and are not reportable under the Act and to track their progress. Results indicate the published progress rates are substantially higher than the progress rates for the non-reportable populations, whether students enter a two-year or a four-year institution. While progress rates for the two samples are significantly correlated within four-year institutions, they are not within two-year institutions. For those beginning at two-year institutions, the progress rates reported under the Student Right-to-Know Act are indicative of neither their absolute nor their relative (cross-institution) probability of success. Policy makers and prospective students will not make efficient decisions without better information.Efficiency, Resource Allocation, Graduation

Her Time, His Time, or the Maid's Time: An Analysis of the Demand for Domestic Work

This paper analyzes households' demand for time inputs to domestic services, modeling simultaneously the decision to purchase services in the market and the time spent on weekend and weekday days by each partner on routine household chores. By focusing on cleaning, laundry, and ironing, we reduce the likelihood that preferences matter and increase the overlap with market services. Particular emphasis is placed on estimating the effects of prices, as captured by own and partner wages and the market price for domestic services. We exploit time-diary data for Great Britain and France, relying on cross-country comparisons to generalize our findings. The results indicate that prices strongly influence market purchases, and that maid service is a closer substitute for household time on weekends than weekdays, but is also correlated with 'her' weekday time. More generally, we find that women's wages have a stronger association with the inputs to domestic work than any other price measure.time use, domestic work, gender

Household Specialization and the Male Marriage Wage Premium

Empirical research has consistently shown that married men have substantially higher wages, on average, than otherwise similar unmarried men. One commonly cited hypothesis to explain this pattern is that marriage allows one spouse to specialize in market production and the other to specialize in home production, enabling the former - usually the husband - to acquire more market-specific human capital and, ultimately, earn higher wages. The authors test this hypothesis using panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households. The data reveal that married men spent virtually the same amount of time on home production as did single men, albeit on different types of housework. Estimates from a fixed effects wage equation indicate that the male marriage wage premium is not substantially affected by controls for home production activities. Household specialization, the authors conclude, does not appear to have been responsible for the marriage premium in this sample

How Do Adolescents Spell Time Use?

We investigate how household disadvantage affects the time use of 15-18 year-olds using 2003-2006 data from the American Time Use Survey. Applying competing-risk hazard models, we distinguish between the incidence and duration of activities and incorporate the daily time constraint. We find that teens living in disadvantaged households spend less time in non-classroom schooling activities than other teens. Girls spend some of this time in work activities, suggesting they are taking on adult roles. However we find more evidence of substitution into unsupervised activities, suggesting that it may be less structured environments that reduce educational investment.event history models, adolescence, time use

How do Adolescents Spell Time Use?

We investigate how household disadvantage affects the time use of 15-18 year-olds using 2003- 2006 data from the American Time Use Survey. Applying competing-risk hazard models, we distinguish between the incidence and duration of activities and incorporate the daily time constraint. We find that teens living in disadvantaged households spend less time in nonclassroom schooling activities than other teens. Girls spend some of this time in work activities, suggesting they are taking on adult roles. However we find more evidence of substitution into unsupervised activities, suggesting that it may be less structured environments that reduce educational investment.Time use, adolescence, event history models

"Parental Child Care in Single Parent, Cohabiting, and Married Couple Families: Time Diary Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom"

This study uses time diary data from the 2003 American Time Use Survey and the United Kingdom Time Use Survey 2000 to examine the time that single, cohabiting, and married parents devote to caring for their children. Time spent in market work, in child care as a primary activity, and in child care as a passive activity are jointly modeled using a correlated, censored regression model. Separate estimates are provided by gender, by country, and by weekend/weekday day. We find no evidence that these time allocation decisions differ for cohabiting and married parents, but there is evidence that single persons allocate time differently - as might be expected, given different household time constraints. In the U.S. single fathers spend significantly more time in primary child care on weekdays and substantially less time in passive child care on weekends than their married or cohabiting counterparts, while in the UK single fathers spend significantly more time in passive child care on weekdays. Single fathers in each country report less time at work on weekdays than their married or cohabiting counterparts. In the U.S., single mothers work more than married or cohabiting mothers on weekdays, while single mothers in the United Kingdom work less than married or cohabiting mothers on all days.

What women want (their men to do): housework and satisfaction in Australian households

The time allocated to household chores is substantial, with the burden falling disproportionately upon women. Further, social norms about how much work men and women should contribute in the home are likely to influence couples’ housework allocation decisions and evaluations of their lot. Using Australian data, we employ a two-stage estimation procedure to examine how deviations from housework norms relate to couples’ satisfaction. In stage one, we model housework time to identify predicted (i.e., socially expected) and residual components. In support of this bifurcation, the residual housework time measures are strongly related to each partner’s perceived fairness of the division of household tasks. In stage two, we predict satisfaction based on predicted and residual housework time. We find that women’s satisfaction, but not men’s, is robustly affected by their partners’ residual housework time. When he exceeds housework norms, she is happier with housework allocations, but less happy in broader dimensions