CHOICE CHARACTERISTICS AND PARENTS CHILD-CARE DECISIONS

Choice models are a key tool of empirically oriented rational choice r esearchers. However, most researchers do not have the information they need to adequately test their hypotheses and rely solely on individua l characteristics of the choosers. The lack of information on the opti ons and constraints parents face may lead researchers to conclude that choices are not rational rather than to question whether they have th e appropriate data. This issue is particularly important for researche rs interested in modeling child-care choice, since the characteristics of care are more amenable to policy intervention than the characteris tics of persons. This paper estimates models of choice of child-care a rrangement that include measures of price. quality and availability ob tained directly from parents in the National Child Care Survey of 1990 . This paper compares alternative estimates of the associations of the se characteristics with mode choice. Adding care characteristics to mo dels with individual characteristics improves the explanation of paren tal child-care choices. Using parent reports of the characteristics of arrangements they used and those they did not use produces results mo re consistent with expectations than estimates based on predicted valu es. The results also suggest that having parent reports on the charact eristics of alternatives not used improves the precision of estimates of the associations between prices and child-care mode choices. Correc ting for selectivity does not appear to be a reasonable substitute whe n such information is lacking.