COMPETITION FOR UNIVERSITY PLACES AND PARENTAL TIME INVESTMENTS: EVIDENCE FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM

Across the industrialized world college-educated parents invest more time in their children relative to noncollege-educated parents. Yet, the reason for the education gradient in parental time investments is not well understood. Using 24-hour diary surveys since the 1970s we document an inverse U-shape in the education gradient in the United Kingdom. Theories unfolding gradually and monotonically cannot easily explain this pattern. Using an exogenous increase in the number of students going on to university in the 1980s, we show that an alternative explanation based on competition for university places can explain the temporal and spatial variation in the education gradient. (JEL J13, J24)