Price, Joseph. 2008. “Parent-Child Quality Time: Does Birth Order Matter?” Journal of Human Resources 43(1): 240–265.
Using data from the American Time Use Survey, I find that a first-born child receives 20-30 more minutes of quality time each day with his or her parent than a second-born child of the same age from a similar family. The birth-order difference results from parents giving roughly equal time to each child at any point in time while the amount of parent-child quality time decreases as children get older. These results provide a plausible explanation for recent research showing a very significant effect of birth order on child outcomes.
Joseph Price is an assistant professor of economics at Brigham Young University. This paper has benefitted from helpful comments by Fran Blau, Keith Bryant, Janet Currie, Gordon Dahl, Rachel Dunifon, Ron Ehrenberg, Gary Fields, Jonathan Gruber, Robert Hernandez, George Jakubson, Robert Kaestner, Barrett Kirwan, Lars Lefgren, Dean Lillard, Albert Liu, Francesca Molinari, Liz Peters, Corinne Post, Mathis Schroeder, Gary Solon, Dan Rees, and participants at the NBER summer institute, APPAM, PAA, SOLE, and seminars at Cornell, Rochester, and the University of Oregon. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning August 2008 through July 2011 from Joseph Price, BYU Economics Department, 130 FOB, Provo, UT 84604 <joseph_ price@byu.edu>.