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Family Expenditures on Child Care

  • Dan T Rosenbaum and Christopher J Ruhm
Published/Copyright: July 16, 2007
The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy
From the journal The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy Volume 7 Issue 1

Abstract

This study examines the child care "expenditure share," defined as child care expenses divided by after-tax income. We estimate that the average child under six years of age lives in a family that spends 4.9 percent of after-tax income on child care. However, this conceals wide variation: 63 percent of such children reside in families with no child care expenses and 10 percent are in families where the expenditure share exceeds 16 percent. The proportion of income devoted to child care is typically greater in single-parent than married-couple families but is not systematically related to a constructed measure of socioeconomic status. One reason for this is that disadvantaged families use lower cost modes and pay less per hour for given types of care. The expenditure share would be much less equal without low cost (presumably subsidized) formal care focused on needy families, as well as government tax and transfer policies that redistribute income towards them.

Keywords: child care; expenditure share; parental employment; work-family balance
Published Online: 2007-7-16

©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.2202/1935-1682.1682
Keywords for this article
child care; expenditure share; parental employment; work-family balance

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Contributions Article
  2. Regional Integration, Subsidy Competition and the Relocation Choice of MNCs
  3. Academic Journal Prices in a Digital Age: A Two-Sided Market Model
  4. A Model of Dysfunctional Urges and Addiction with an Application to Cigarette Smoking
  5. Gasoline Price Differences: Taxes, Pollution Regulations, Mergers, Market Power, and Market Conditions
  6. Disability Testing and Retirement
  7. The Short and Long Run Effects of Daylight Saving Time on Fatal Automobile Crashes
  8. The Effect of Smoking Bans on Bars and Restaurants: An Analysis of Changes in Employment
  9. Market Power Effects on Market Equilibrium in Ambient Permit Markets
  10. The Optimal Consumption and the Quitting of Harmful Addictive Goods
  11. The Pro-collusive Effect of Increasing the Repose Period for Price Fixing Agreements
  12. Does It Pay To Pray? Costly Ritual and Cooperation
  13. Vaccination Externalities
  14. Animal House: Economics of Pets and the Household
  15. The Informational Value of Affirmative Action in College Admissions
  16. Optimal Contracts for Health Services in the Presence of Waiting Times and Asymmetric Information
  17. Does Investment Promotion Work?
  18. Optimal Prevention when Informal Penalties Matter: The Case of Medical Errors
  19. Atkinson-Stiglitz Theorem with Endogenous Human Capital Accumulation
  20. Does the Minimum Wage Cause Inefficient Rationing?
  21. The Unpleasant Effects of Price Deregulation in the European Third-Party Motor Insurance Market: A Theoretical Framework
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  23. Visa Screening and Collateral Import of Terrorism
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  25. Optimal Origin-based Commodity Taxation in a Small Open Economy
  26. Consumer Food Safety Risk Perceptions and Attitudes: Impacts on Beef Consumption across Countries
  27. Advances Article
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  32. Foreign Direct Investment, Endogenous Tariffs, and Preferential Trade Agreements
  33. Detecting Information Pooling: Evidence from Earnings Forecasts after Brokerage Mergers
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  35. Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration
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  66. Firm Regulation and Profit Sharing: A Real Option Approach
  67. Understanding Participation in Social Programs: Why Don't Households Pick up the Lifeline?
  68. Cross-Border Shopping and the Sales Tax: An Examination of Food Purchases in West Virginia
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