Education gradients in parental time investment and subjective well-being

College-educated mothers spend substantially more time in intensive childcare than less educated mothers despite their higher opportunity cost of time and working more hours. Using data from the 2010–2013 and 2021 waves of the Well-being Module of the American Time Use Survey, we investigate this puzzle by testing the hypothesis that college-educated mothers enjoy childcare more. We find that among all mothers, spending time in childcare is associated with higher positive feelings compared to spending time in other activities. However, college-educated mothers experience no more positive feelings and no fewer negative feelings during intensive childcare than other mothers. This is true for mothers’ childcare time in basic care, play, teaching, and management, and for mothers whose youngest child is under five, six to eleven, or older than eleven years old. Findings are robust to controlling for a rich set of covariates, mother fixed effects, and simulations to account for selection into intensive childcare.

Duke Scholars

Author Lisa A. Gennetian Sanford School of Public Policy